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Partnership creates food access map

Staff Report //May 19, 2020//

Partnership creates food access map

Staff Report //May 19, 2020//

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Ten at the Top, United Way and Clemson University’s College of Behavioral, Social and Health Sciences have launched a food access map including 400 providers across 10 counties.

“Many people, perhaps for the first time in their lives, are experiencing food insecurity and unemployment due to COVID-19,” Sharon Purvis, outreach and special projects director at Ten at the Top, said in a news release. “It was vital that we move as quickly as possible to develop a resource that helps people find food assistance and helps agencies promote the assistance they provide.”

The map, compiled with information collected by Clemson’s Joseph F. Sullivan Center, United Way’s 2-1-1 emergency resource system and Ten at the Top’s senior resources map, will feature services offered at each provider, operating hours and availability, according to the news release. The collaboration added about 350 new providers to United Way’s 2-1-1 system.

“The efforts of the Clemson team tremendously boosted and strengthened our list of food resources,” Jeremy Price, director of United Way of Pickens County, said in the release.

The map aids Upstate residents in need during the coronavirus pandemic, but Clemson’s social science department will continue to expand its resources for future crises.

“There are individuals and families in the Upstate region who face food insecurity even at the ‘best’ of times,” Leslie Hossfeld, dean of the department, said in the news release. “A crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic only makes clearer the need for good, reliable information on what type of help is available and where to find it. This map has been put in place to serve as a hub for that information.”

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