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Despite being closed for the Independence Day holiday, the Bellingham Food Bank set a record for the number of families served during the first full week of July.

Spurred by increased demand as more Bellingham residents feel the impact of recent inflation, the Food Bank helped approximately 3,300 families July 3-9, Executive Director Mike Cohen told The Bellingham Herald. That is the highest weekly number in the 50-year history of the Bellingham Food Bank. That’s not just a one-week spike. Business has been accelerating in recent weeks, Cohen said, after the Bellingham Food Bank helped approximately 2,000 families a week during COVID.

“We are seeing steady increases for, really, the last year, and the latest bit of inflation is certainly adding another push,” Cohen told The Herald. “Our Food Bank is about twice as busy as we were right before COVID started, and we saw big increases start at the turn of the calendar year when some of those pandemic benefits were ending, like the child tax credit. “As summer has progressed, we have been getting increasingly busier.”