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Demand for food assistance in much of Middle Tennessee has been declining for the last couple of years. But Second Harvest Food Bank is expanding anyway, as the organization finds hunger is becoming a more dispersed problem.
"Strategically, we have to think about things differently," says Second Harvest executive director Jaynee Day.
The region's food bank, which serves roughly half the state, runs out of a sprawling facility in Nashville's MetroCenter. But Davidson County has seen some big improvements: The number of food stamp recipients has been dropping by a thousand or more every month, according to monthly breakdowns.
Fewer people are also leaning on the emergency food box program at Second Harvest, from 124,000 in 2015 to 110,000 in 2016.
More: Read Second Harvest's annual report
But the gains have been isolated primarily to Nashville.
"It's been an educational process for us to understand our service area better and the counties that we serve and what their needs are," Day says.
As Nashville's numbers drop, rural counties like Humphreys on the Tennessee River and Coffee and Cannon Counties southeast of Nashville have seen food stamp recipients hold steady or increase slightly.
More: See county-by-county breakdowns from the Tennessee Department of Human Services
For that reason, Second Harvest is branching out, establishing outposts in Camden and Murfreesboro.
"We've decided to go to a hub-and-spoke model that we think will be more efficient," Day says.
These warehouses are meant to cut the time it takes to get food to local distributors and perhaps inspire more organizations to start emergency programs. While there are nearly 500 pantries and food providers in Middle Tennessee, Day says there are still some counties without a single one.
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