Hunger is rising in Wisconsin and there’s not enough emergency food to meet the need.
The food bank, Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin, helps feed hungry people in 35 of the state's 72 counties. The organization serves up to 300,000 people every month through food pantries and other partners.
Monique Kelley is president and CEO of Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin. WUWM’s Ann-Elise Henzl talked to her as part of our series, Seeking Solutions: Food Access in Milwaukee.
Ann-Elise Henzl: Are people who are hungry here typically individuals who are unemployed, underemployed or on fixed incomes, or are there other circumstances that contribute to their lack of food access?
Monique Kelley: Everyone that you just kind of listed really falls in this category, but what we've noticed that the face of hunger truly is changing. We're seeing a significant increase among the working poor. So these are families who are working, they are paying their bills and they're trying to make ends meet, but their income just isn't high enough or they don't qualify for programs like SNAP.
In Wisconsin, 44% (of people with) food insecurity have incomes that are too high to actually qualify for SNAP. And in eastern Wisconsin, that's approximately 224,000 people. This is particularly visible in suburban communities, including the WOW counties, as well as other parts of the Fox Valley and Northeast Wisconsin.
Seniors are another particularly vulnerable population, especially those living on fixed incomes and facing transportation barriers. So it really is just pervasive.
When you look at the overall hunger numbers locally, are they going up or going down? And what's the reason for the trends?
Demand is rising sharply and the economic pressure on families is truly real. The demand across our partner network has increased 30-40% over the past two years and in 2025 alone, 80,000 more people needed food assistance across Eastern Wisconsin. And that is just a basic reality that life just costs more right now.
At the same time, access to public food assistance is becoming a little more difficult and restrictive. SNAP enrollment in Wisconsin has fallen by nearly 50,000 people since March of 2025. So the demand that we're seeing really isn't like a mystery. Families are being squeezed from both ends. Everyday expenses are going up. We're seeing that when we're grocery shopping ourselves. And then some of the programs that are really built to help families put food on the table are becoming harder to access.
How does a food bank like Feeding America keep up with such a growing demand for emergency food?
To be frank, we simply can't keep up with the demand. No food bank really can.
We have a team that's focused specifically on supporting our pantry partners, but new organizations regularly will approach us because they see the need in their community and want to be a part of that solution. But there just isn't an unlimited supply of food that's coming into the system. So our goal right now is to make sure that the food pantries that we already support have enough food to meet the growing demand.
Ideally, we would want every person who walks through a pantry door to see enough food on those shelves to meet their needs for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But the difficult reality is that food pantries can't simply increase the amount of food that they distribute when demand increases because the food bank itself doesn't have enough food to provide them. So the challenge really isn't lack of people willing to help. The challenge is that there simply isn't enough food moving through our systems to meet the need.
Support for Seeking Solutions: Food Access in Milwaukee is provided by Jon E. Sorenson, Christine Symchych and Jim McNulty, Forage Kitchen, Capuchin Community Services and Antonia Foundation.
