PENNSYLVANIA, USA — Second Lady Giselle Fetterman joined Senate Democrats and experts on Friday to talk about fighting food insecurity in the commonwealth.
Officials say that food insecurity has skyrocketed amid the pandemic — saying it likely doubled in Philadelphia over the past year.
That issue has seen an increase in people looking for aid, both from food banks and snaps benefits.
Officials said so much more needs to be done — especially because people are not getting the help they need.
"Where I see the biggest gap, and we see the biggest gap at Einstein is these programs that remove barriers, any program that helps removes barriers like SNAP, programs where there's barriers for people to sign up wherever we can remove those," said Dixie James, president of Einstein Healthcare.
Leaders talked about fixing "now" problems and getting people food where they need it as well as "later" problems by helping people gain financial independence and make enough money to get out of poverty.