In the past two years, the number of people coming to Helpline House food bank doubled. This spring, Helpline lost 40 percent of their funding to buy meat, dairy, and fruit and all of their funding to buy from local farms.

John Fossett, the adult services librarian at the Bainbridge Public Library, once attended a virtual preparedness summit at which a woman said, “If you can’t grow food in your community, you are not prepared.”