COLUMBUS – Record high gas prices and inflation are not only squeezing commuters, businesses and transit companies, but also non-profit organizations that supply their clients with food and other goods.
At $5.07 per gallon, the average price of gasoline in Columbus is at its highest level ever and that is impacting the nation’s largest charity distributor of meals to clients in their homes from multiple directions.
Lifecare Alliance, which operates the Meals-On-Wheels program in several central Ohio counties, finds itself struggling with staffing issues, delivery costs and food costs in its efforts to deliver meals to senior citizens and other residents who find it difficult to leave their homes.
As a result of the higher gas prices, many of the companies that supply the organization with its food suppliers are demanding fuel surcharges on shipments, a provision often written into contracts between the companies and the agencies they supply, Lifecare Alliance president and CEO Chuck Gehring said in an interview for Perspective.
“And, it looks cheap – one cent per case. Well, we get three semis a day of food here…full of cases, and that gets into several hundred dollars every week,” Gehring said.
The cost of the food inside those cases has also gone up, Gehring said.
The organization’s food costs have increases between 8% and 16% in the last year and, on average, 12% since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Finally, delivering the meals has become more difficult because expensive gas has forced many volunteer drivers to cancel their scheduled deliveries, leaving the organization to fill the gaps with other volunteers or paid drivers, who are being reimbursed for fuel costs at a higher rate, Gehring said.
“The last few days, we’ve had call-offs from people that feel the gas is just too expensive for them to be using right now to volunteer and deliver meals for us,” he said.
The average price of a gallon of gasoline has jumped 25 cents since Monday, according to the auto club AAA.