Just after Thanksgiving, Carmen Allen became alarmed by the jump in prices and shortages of food products at her local grocery stores.
“Cake mix,” Allen says. “I was worried I wouldn’t find enough of it to give out in our food baskets.”
Allen serves as president and executive director of Beyond the Sanctuary, a nonprofit based in Rochester, New York that provides meals, clothing, job readiness support and other assistance to individuals and families in need.
For the Thanksgiving baskets, she bought 150 cake mix boxes for 99 cents each. Just days later, she went on another grocery run to stock up on more cake mix for Christmas baskets and things had already changed.