ASHEVILLE, N.C. — The need for emergency food is skyrocketing across the state. According to Manna FoodBank in Asheville, approximately one in five people need food assistance in the 16 Western North Carolina counties they serve. 

Josh Chapman works at Manna and helps put together food orders and packages. Chapman, alongside his colleagues, has been putting extra time and effort in as he’s seen requests grow. 

“I worked in warehouses for years just working for a lot of corporations, and I always felt kind of empty doing that,” Chapman said. “When the opportunity arose to come here to Manna, it was right up my alley.”

This is a direction he’s always wanted to go in.

“I’ve been here about four years, and it’s never felt too much like work to me,” Chapman said.

The desire has been instilled in him since childhood. 

“Watching what our dad did and what our mom did, they definitely planted that seed within us of a passion to help people,” Chapman said.

He saw his parents give back to the community and is honored to continue that legacy.

“Different people, families, when they’d be struggling, my dad would send them and their wives to our house, and my mom would pack them up a box of groceries and send them off, and would buy diapers and stuff like that,” Chapman said.

Every package, especially during a time of growth like this, is essential to Chapman.

“We are unfortunately seeing the highest numbers we’ve ever seen right now, far past what we saw in the pandemic, in terms of people needing emergency food in hand,” Manna FoodBank director of marketing and communications Kara Irani said.

In August, they served over 167,000 people with emergency food assistance, compared with an average of 65,000 just before the pandemic, becoming a record high for Manna FoodBank. 

“A lot of people are on a fixed income and when the cost of food and rent goes up, they have to, a lot of times they have to choose between medicine and a roof over their head,” Chapman said.

An increasing demand impacts the amount of volunteers and food required to fulfill the emergency requests. 

“I think me and my coworkers for the most part, we know the needs out there,” Chapman said. “So, we’re just having to pick up the pace and … do what we can.”