VOA慢速英语2020 受疫情大流行影响 美国亟需更多食品银行（在线收听）

American Brooklyn Dotson needed food. Dotson had worked at a warehouse in Tennessee, but she lost her job. She told the government about her situation in hopes of getting financial aid for the unemployed. But her first payment had yet to arrive.

美国人布鲁克林·多特森急需食物。多特森曾在田纳西州的一个仓库工作，但她失业了。她向政府介绍了自己的处境，希望能够获得政府为失业者提供的经济援助。但她的第一笔救助款项尚未到账。

So, the young Nashville woman drove almost 50 kilometers to the GraceWorks Ministries food bank in Franklin. There, workers loaded about $350 worth of food into her car.

因此，这位年轻的纳什维尔女子驱车近50公里到达富兰克林食品银行“GraceWorks Ministries”。食品银行的工人们给她车上装了价值约350美元的食物。

“I don’t have any income coming in…it’s just hard to get any help right now,” Dotson said. She spoke with The Associated Press while waiting in line at GraceWorks.

多特森表示：“我没有任何收入……而且现在很难获得任何帮助。”在食品银行排队时，她接受了美联社的采访。

Food banks across the United States stay busy even in the best of economic times. Now, however, the coronavirus pandemic has brought increased demand as millions of people like Dotson are unexpectedly out of work.

即使在经济最繁荣的时期，美国各地的食品银行都是忙忙碌碌的。现在冠状病毒大流行使得需求骤增，因为有数百万像多特森这样的人意外失业。

“About 50 percent of the people coming through our lines have never been here before,” said Valencia A. Breckenridge, who serves as president of Graceworks.

Graceworks食品银行的总裁巴伦西亚·布雷肯里奇表示：“来这里排队领取食物的人中大约有50%此前从未来过。”

Lack of donations

捐款不足

Just as demand for food is increasing, however, many of the people and places that offered donations in the past have stopped. Restaurants and hotels are closed or have reduced operations. At other times, they gave all their extra food to food banks.

然而随着对食物需求的增长，过去许多提供捐助的人物和场所却停止了捐赠。餐馆和酒店已关门歇业或减少了运营时间。而此前他们都会把全部的剩余食物都捐赠给食品银行。

“It is a perfect storm scenario,” said Katie Fitzgerald. She is chief operating officer of Feeding America. It is an organization representing more than 60,000 food banks nationwide.

“美国消灭饥饿组织”（Feeding America）的首席运营官凯蒂·菲茨杰拉德说，“这是典型的风暴效应”。该组织是全美60,000多家食品银行的代表。

Feeding America has seen an increase in demand from 98 percent of its member food banks, one study found.

一项研究发现，“美国消灭饥饿组织”旗下98%的食品银行均面临食品需求增长的情况。

In recent legislation, the U.S. Congress included money for emergency food aid. Fitzgerald has warned that the money may take months to reach local neighborhoods. She notes that the demand is now. The $100 million that billionaire Jeff Bezos promised to her organization on April 2 was already given out last week, she noted.

近期立法中，美国国会将应急食品援助资金纳入其中。菲茨杰拉德警告称，这笔钱可能要数月后才能到达底层社区，而重点是当下的需求。她指出，亿万富翁杰夫·贝佐斯在4月2日向其组织承诺的1亿美元捐赠上周已经发放完了。

 “When people say what do you need the most, we need food and money,” said Nancy Keil. She is president and chief executive officer of Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee.

“当你询问人们他们最需要什么时，大家都会说需要食物和钱，”南希·凯尔说。她是田纳西州中部Second Harvest食品银行的总裁兼首席执行官。

Keeping volunteers safe from the virus

确保志愿者不被病毒感染

Food banks have also had to find ways to give out their food supplies while keeping their workers safe from the coronavirus.

食品银行必须找出既能分发食品，同时又能保护工作人员免被冠状病毒感染的办法。

The San Francisco-Marin Food Bank in California has built “pop-up” food banks after some of its sites closed because of the pandemic, a spokeswoman said. The newest sites serve hundreds of people every day. They are open for longer hours and use open spaces to enforce social distance.

一位女发言人称，在因大流行导致部分食品银行服务点关闭后，加利福尼亚州旧金山马林食品银行建立了“弹出式”食品银行。最新的服务点每天能为数百人提供服务。它们开放的时间更长，还能利用开放空间来增强社交距离。

Many older adults work as volunteers at food banks, which creates another problem. Older people face a greater risk from the coronavirus.

许多老年人在食品银行当志愿者，这又带来了另一个问题。老年人被冠状病毒感染的风险更大。

The East Nashville Cooperative Ministry food bank has considered closing because so many of its volunteers are older adults.

东纳什维尔合作部食品银行已在考虑关闭其服务点，因为他们的许多志愿者都是老年人。

Judy Wahlstrom, age 70, directs the program. She has refused to stop her volunteer work, but taken steps to protect herself. Only one person is permitted to enter the food bank at a time, and she now wears a face mask.

70岁的朱迪·瓦尔斯特罗姆负责该项目。她拒绝停止她的志愿者工作，但采取了相应的措施保护自己。食品银行一次只允许一个人进入，而且她现在还会戴着口罩。

“I said, ‘If I get it, I get it,’” Wahlstrom said. “I don’t have anybody at home dependent on me. I said, ‘I got to keep it open.’”

瓦尔斯特罗姆说：“我说‘如果我被感染了，那就感染了吧。我家里已经没有其他人需要我了。我说，‘我必须让食品银行开下去。’”

At the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma, spokeswoman Cathy Nestlen said nearly 45,000 people helped out last year. This year the group is using more paid employees to reduce the number of volunteers.

在俄克拉荷马州的区域性食品银行，女发言人凯茜·内斯特伦表示，去年有近45,000人进行了志愿者服务。今年该组织则更多地选择雇佣有薪员工来减少志愿者数量。

The bank acts as a food distribution center for hundreds of smaller food banks. It recently moved to a six-day work week and is considering going to seven days a week.

该银行是数百个小型食品银行的食品分配中心。它最近已经转变为每周工作六天，而且在考虑实行每周工作七天。

Oklahoma is one of the states that had a high level of malnutrition in the country before the virus, Nestlen said.

内斯特伦表示，病毒爆发前俄克拉何马州就已是该国营养不良现象较严重的州之一。

 “When a household becomes economically insecure, they almost immediately become food-insecure,” she added.

她补充道：“当一个家庭在经济上没有保障时，他们几乎会立即担忧吃饭问题。”

I’m Jill Robbins.

吉尔·罗宾斯报道。