MIDDLESEX TWP — As inflation continues to rise and gas prices per gallon stay firmly above the $4 mark, some food pantries in Butler County have seen an increased flow of people seeking aid.

At the Lighthouse Foundation’s food pantry in Middlesex Township, food pantry director Joe Franciscus has seen 382 new clients added since the beginning of the year.

The Lighthouse Foundation’s food pantry is open 1 to 4 p.m. Monday, 3 to 6 p.m. Tuesday, 1 to 4 p.m. Wednesday, and 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.Thursday at 116 Browns Hill Road.

“We’ve seen numbers kind of fluctuate once in a while, but based on the numbers, it definitely has been up a little bit,” he said. “In total, we average 650 to 700 meals or orders each month.”

Franciscus said the pantry has especially seen an increase in the past few weeks, leading up to Easter. The pantry was able to distribute Easter ham to families this past week.

Supply chain issues have presented some challenges for the pantry.

“We’ve definitely seen a little bit of a decrease in the pickups that we do at our local resource stores,” he said. “They’ve been running lower on their supplies.”

The pantry still receives a lot of donations from individuals, though, he added.

“We have a pretty good support of donations that come through that we’re able to utilize,” he said. “Around the holidays, we see an increase in people’s want to donate, which is great, and we are able to accept those donations pretty often.”

The Lighthouse’s pantry is set up like a small grocery store, where those in need can choose from food on the shelves, he said. For those interested in donating, monetary donations are especially needed, as food pantries can often order food in bulk at discounted prices.

“We’re always looking for cereal — that’s been something we’ve seen a little bit of lower donations come through,” he said. “(We also need) oil to cook with, and salad dressing, or condiments like ketchup and mustard that aren’t really available or able to order very often.”

At St. Vincent de Paul’s food bank in Butler, which is open from 8:30 to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday at 146 N. Monroe St., director of services Lisa Slupe said monthly totals so far this year have increased from 229 families to 235 to 261 by the end of March.

“It’s starting slowly to increase, and I believe it’s because of the rise in the cost of fuel and food,” she said. “I can see it myself when I go to the grocery store, how things just jump up so much in price.”

The food bank at St. Vincent de Paul often serves senior citizens who are on fixed incomes, she said. In total, over that three-month period, the pantry served 1,692 individuals.

“We see a blended case of a lot of different folks. A lot of veterans, a lot of seniors, and some young families,” she said. “There’s a lot of people that are on disability, and a lot of seniors, who only get maybe their Social Security and that’s it.”

Slupe agreed that monetary donations can be particularly useful.

“We have been really blessed with food donations, and also monetary donations,” she said. “Both are very generous and nice, but with monetary, because we belong to the Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank, we can purchase our food for a lot less through them.”

To sign up and receive food, she said, people should bring a piece of mail with their address on it, like a utility bill.

“We’re not going to turn anybody away,” she said.

At the Southwest Butler Food Cupboard in Harmony, director Erin Makowski says that numbers have actually decreased somewhat in recent months. The food cupboard distributes food from 6 to 8 p.m. every third Tuesday of each month.

“We were doing about 145 people in December, and we are at about 80 clients currently, which is amazing,” Makowski said. “The only thing we can think of is there are multiple pantries close to us.”

Along with a plethora of food resources in the region, she said, more businesses may be hiring now than earlier in the pandemic.

“We saw an increase in the beginning of COVID, and in mid-COVID, when a lot of people who worked in retail and restaurants couldn’t work or weren’t getting enough hours,” she said.

While numbers are lower now, they may rise soon, she said.

“I assumed that with inflation with the cost of gas going up that we would see more people. I’m surprised that our numbers are where they are,” Makowski said. “I anticipate that they will go up. With the cost of everything rising, it makes sense that it will continue to go up.”

Since the pandemic began, the food cupboard’s demographics of those seeking aid have changed.

“The majority of the people we see are young families; 80% of our clients are people with young children,” Makowski said. “It used to be that we saw a lot of seniors, and we have a handful of seniors, but the majority of people are between the ages of 30 and 50.”

For items to donate, Makowski recommended any shelf-stable items, especially those with protein.

“We get a ton of pasta, but it’s the other things that we don’t get, like canned chicken and beans,” she said. “We get a lot of soup, pasta, peanut butter. We always need cereal, cereal is a staple.”

She recommends people go grocery shopping and choose items that would be needed to build a meal.

“If you’re going to bring peanut butter, bring jelly to go with it,” she said. “We get all the peanut butter, but never the jelly.”