Google launches free food services site for hungry
June 29 (UPI) — Google launched Tuesday a site to help people find free food support in their community.
The Find Food Support site allows people facing food insecurity to enter their address to find the closest places in their community with support services, a Google blog on the new site shows.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines food insecurity as “limited or uncertain access to adequate food,” which may result in hunger causing “discomfort, illness, weakness or pain that goes beyond the usual uneasy sensation.”
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in an economic recession, ending years of declining rates of food insecurity, according to Feeding America. Food insecurity rose nearly 30% over the last year from the previous year to impact one in seven Americans, equating to 45 million people in 2020, including 15 million children. The non-profit network of food banks estimates that 42 million people, including 13 million children, may experience food insecurity this year.
Google worked with No Kid Hungry, FoodFinder and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to aggregate 90,000 places with free food support across 50 states with more locations to come.
“Food insecurity impacts people from all walks of life — especially since the start of the pandemic,” Emily Ma of Food For Good, a social business incubator within PepsiCo focused on developing models to improve access to healthy foods in underserved communities, wrote in the blog.
Ma added that school closures due to the pandemic worsened food insecurity for school children relying on free school lunch programs, and Black and Latino communities, disabled Americans, and Americans without a college degree were disproportionately impacted.
Food insecurity also grew among military families amid the pandemic to impact one in five military families, according to a recent survey by Military Family Advisory Network.
The new site contains “stigma-busting videos,” to show food insecurity could impact all walks of life, and also provides food support hotlines, state-by-state benefit guides and specific information for seniors, families and children, and military families, Ma said in the blog. The site also has information on how to donate food, time and money to help those in need.
“There’s a long way to go to fully solving the hunger crisis in the U.S. and around the globe, but we hope Find Food Support helps connect people in the U.S. to free food and assistance in their time of need,” Ma wrote in the blog.
