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(Des Moines, IA) -- The Des Moines Area Religious Council ("DMARC") says July was its busiest month of all time.
"This was this busiest month on record," said Blake Willadsen with DMARC, "I think you'll probably see that record broken two or three more times before the year is over."
He says summer doesn't usually result in such a high number of visits. "We saw 28,000 people, at least visited one of our food panties, those fourteen different sites here in the Des Moines metro area," Willadsen said of last month, "to put that in perspective, about one in three people living in the City of Des Moines visited one of our food pantries."
Willadsen says he attributes stagnant wages, high inflation, and the overall cost of living to the increase. He says it is now putting a strain on a charitable giving sector that wasn’t designed to handle such demand outside of emergencies. He also says monetary donations go further at DMARC than they would at a normal grocery store, due to the organization being able to make bulk food purchases. He says DMARC is meant to serve everyone.