farragutpress

Pantries seeing a surge

Second Harvest and local churches are prepared to assist families and individuals

November 26, 2025 by Tammy Cheek

Food Insecurity, Part 1 of 3



As the holidays approach, Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee and the food pantries it serves already are seeing a surge in people seeking assistance.

With this influx, they have to prepare to serve more families and individuals.

“Our numbers have picked up about double from what we’ve been getting,” said Joan Cambeses, who is in charge of Grassy Valley Baptist Church’s food pantry. “We’ve been averaging about 160. Today, we had 187, and it’s a lot of new people.

“These are huge families,” she said. “They have to fill out a form and list how many people in a household, and it was averaging like one to two, three, sometimes four. Now, we’re looking at eight, sometimes nine, 10 people in their homes.

“There’re a lot of teenagers and younger children on these lists,” Cambeses said. “Some of it is grandparents taking care of their grandchildren.

“We’ve had a lady from Lenoir City came over here. Some from Knoxville and Alcoa,” she said. “They have been looking for food pantries, and one they went to was out of food, and they couldn’t find any others open.

“All food pantries run differently,” Cambeses said. “Some run once a week, like us. Some are open once a month. Some are by-weekly. And, there are certain hours.

“What we do is we have a list of all the pantries in Knox County; and if we know somebody’s struggling to find food — we try to give them as much as we can, for like four or five days — we give them the list,” she said.

“And a lot of these people go from pantry to pantry, just to make ends meet,” Cambeses said.

“In practice, our pantries see working parents and individuals coming needing assistance,” Second Harvest senior marketing and creative strategist Jon Rice said. “They may miss a meal so their children can eat, or they rely on our Food For Kids program to help get their families through the weekend or during holidays.

“For too many of our East Tennessee neighbors, a steady paycheck no longer guarantees food when rent, utilities and healthcare costs have soared,” he added.

But, “during the school year, eligible children receive free breakfast and lunch at school each weekday through federal programs,” Rice said. “Outside of school hours, Second Harvest provides extra support.”

“Visits to our website’s Find a Food Pantry page jumped from 587 in September to 10,133 in October, an increase of over 1,600 percent,” Rice said. “That surge mirrors what our pantry partners have been seeing at their brick-and-mortar locations and what we’ve been witnessing at our mobile pantry distributions this season: more people than ever needing extra assistance to make it through the month without skipping meals.

“The population of neighbors needing assistance is fairly diverse,” he said. “About one in six East Tennessee children — or 50,460 kids— struggles with food security. “Many neighbors are families with children but also seniors on fixed incomes, veterans and people with disabilities.”

“Our busiest months of the year are November and December due to our holiday basket distributions, plus our regular food distribution to pantry guests,” said Renee Stone, director of Shepherd of Hope Food Pantry, which is housed in Faith Lutheran Church in Farragut. “In addition, we invite approximately 320 Knox County School families to visit the pantry during November and December for the same food offerings.

“In November 2024, we served 1,069 people, compared to November 2025 that had

total guests of 1,187, Stone said. “During the November distribution we purchased 6,180 pounds of non-perishable items from Second Harvest, over 1,200 pounds of protein selections from local grocery stores — ground chuck, chicken breast, hams — 300 dozen eggs and several holiday

food items from local grocery stores,” she said. “Our community donated a large amount

of holiday items to help stock the holiday baskets. 

“We were open three times in November and all was distributed to guests,” she said. “We will be preparing for approximately the same amount of guests in December.