A report from the U.S. Census Bureau says the number of children getting food assistance remains higher than it was before the start of the Great Recession. In Wisconsin, the number of participants in FoodShare has steadily gone up.
Across the nation, 1 in 5 children receives food stamps. In Wisconsin last year, 13 percent of FoodShare recipients were children between the ages of 5 and 9. Half the recipients were under the age of 24.
Other programs and organizations dealing with hunger are also seeing increased demand. Jenny Czerkas is with River Food Pantry in Madison.
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“We’ve been open for nine years and we have never had a decrease in services. It went up almost 8 percent last year,” she said.
Czerkas said Dane County’s largest food pantry had over 29,000 visits in 2014.
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