heal us and untruthfulness is making people sick. let's go back. you mentioned truth. let's go back to the truth. let's own truth, not be afraid of truth. know the truth can help us and heal us and save us and bring us together again. this time will drive us apart or pull each other through us or bring us back together again and i'm trusting and believing and acting on the easter conviction that we can be brought together again and that hope will finally triumph over despair, even life over death. that's what i'm hoping and believing and praying today on this easter sunday. host: reverend jim coverage is always on c-span 2. joining us next is claire babineaux-fontenot, the chief executive officer with the organization feeding america.

ms. babineaux-fontenot, thank for you being with us this morning. tell us what the last month has been like for your organization. guest: i think the only word i can use to express it properly is unprecedented. we've seen significant spikes in demand. we've seen reductions in supply, and right when people need it the most. host: typically what does your organization do? how broad to you reach and what types of places do you provide food? guest: our network is a network of 200 food banks around the united states and in normal times, over 60,000 pantries, kitchens, meal programs, two million volunteers. so we often have said that we are serving every community where there is food insecurity and that means every single county and parish in the u.s.

in normal times we serve every parish and county in the whole united states. host: over the last month or so during the pandemic, what's been harder or tougher to get, the need of people who need food or the ability of your organization and similar organizations to get that food? guest: those are equally difficult challenges. i'm sure your audience has seen how these retail outlets we have historically relied upon for donated food, they have empty shelves. when their shelves are empty, they're not in a position to donate to us. so the largest source of food for our network in normal times is through retail donations, grocery stores and the type of things we need are the things people are buying the most of. we're having to suprasocial distancing and new safety protocol because of the pandemic and the health crisis

in the middle of a food crisis which has made it all the more challenging. host: for folks watching and our c-span radio listeners, what do you need most in teerms of what the -- terms of what the folks at home -- what do you need most? guest: we need a combination of things. first, we certainly continue to need buns and we had a remarkable outpouring of and has hat bipartisan been meaningful and helpful for us and we need people to donate their times. we rely significantly on volunteers, two million as i think we mentioned earlier. as you might imagine because of safety concerns as well as because of an inordinate number of people who volunteer inside of our network are elderly and therefore have their own challenges they need to think about appropriately. we've had fewer and fewer

volunteers who can help us. so the thing that i encourage people to do is go out to feedingamerica.org and there they can find a place where they can donate whatever they're able to donate in terms of funds. they also on that website can locate the food banks that serves the communities they care the most about. and when they go into the website for that community food bank, they can find out, do they need volunteers, do they need them to bring in food or do they need funding and if so what kind of funding might they be able to help with? host: in your previous experience you were executive vice president and global treasurer for wal-mart. how did that experience and logistics and planning you participated in at wal-mart prepare you for this? guest: i don't know i'd be able to rightfully say anything could have prepared any of us for this. but i can say that i have leveraged every experience that i had before coming to feeding

america, i tried to put in play in this work. so certainly at wal-mart we confronted large scale, we confronted significant disruption. i hope that that helps me be a little bit better positioned to serve in this capacity. but what we're seeing today, it's a perfect storm and it's truly unprecedented. i'm so proud, though, from the people that i guess i work with every day at the national office but also around the country. so many of whom volunteer their services to help their neighbors and right now their neighbors need them more than ever. host: our guest is claire babineaux-fontenot, executive officer of feeding america. welcome your comments and calls, 202-748-8000. for those in the eastern and central time zones, 2302-748-8001 the mountain and pacific region and if you're experiencing food insecurity or not able to get to the grocery

store or not able to get what you need on a day-to-day basis the line we set aside is 202-748-8002. there was an article in thursday's "wall street journal," similar piece from "the new york times" this morning, "wall street journal" headline on their piece said farmers dump milk, break eggs as coronavirus restaurant closing destroys demand. how reliant in the past is your organization, feeding america, on that type of donation from restaurants from their food bins. guest: you've identified another stream we've been able to reliably and consistently access. one of the things that people, even those who know our network may not realize is that we are the largest food waste recovery organization in the u.s. so while about 72 billion pounds of edible food tends to go to landfills, our organization recovers billions

of pounds of that food and instead of going to landfill goes to feed people who are hungry. when i mention the perfect storm, i didn't mention all of the elements of that storm but the challenges around restaurants and restaurant productivity are definitely causing a strain on our network as well. and you mentioned the dumping and those challenges there. and i want to identify the fact that feeding america has had long term partnerships with farmers, the dairy industry, etc. and we're working right now to try to come up with highly effective solutions in a really challenging environment. i don't believe any of those people who are dumping want to dump. they'd much prefer that that food find its way to people who can use it and we're working on some solutions to try to make that happen. host: "the new york times" this morning with statistics on that process. again, the lead piece, empty shelves but farms put food to waste.

they write the amount of waste is staggering, the nation's largest dairy cooperative, dairy farmers of america, estimate farmers are dumping as much as 3.7 million gallons of milk each day. a single chicken processor is smashing 750,000 unhatched eggs each week. many farmers donated part of the surplus food banks and meals on wheels programs which have been overwhelmed with demand but there's only so much perishable foods with charities with limited number of refrigerators that they can absorb. your thoughts? guest: that is accurate. one of the things not highlighted in your comments was the fact one of the challenges we'd have in the charitable food system would be the type of containers we need, the size, if you will. as you might imagine, these dairy farmers have things in bulk and our ability to take that on and put it in consumer

sizing is challenging, especially in an environment where we need to practice new safety protocols. so if you're standing six feet apart, if you have fewer volunteers, our ability to work with the product has been diminished. as i said before, i'm sure, as our farmers equally sure that there's a way for us to match these up better than we have, and we're going to work really hard to come up with some better solutions. host: let's go to calls. we hear frirs from even id in tacoma mark, maryland. thanks for waiting and go ahead with your comments. you're on the air. go ahead. caller: hello. host: you're on the air. go ahead. caller: i would like to suggest the farmers who are dumping all this milk and eggs and different things that they be given to restaurants that are

preparing meals and so on so that it could be shared to the people who see lines and lines of cars that people need food. so instead of the farmers dumping -- instead of the farmers dumping all this milk and eggs and so on it be shared so that it could be prepared and used. host: claire babineaux fontenot : have you had conversations with the farmers and potentially actions your organization could take to help them out with this? guest: we have. yes. i may have mentioned this earlier. we've had a long history of having partnerships that cut across just about every industry in the united states and that certainly includes farmers. and we're actively talking with farmers right now. what we have to do is change the whole logistical system for

delivering these products to people who need them and unfortunately, that has taken a also time but we're working with them. we're also appealing to the government to help us do that in a way that's sufficient. as i hope that your addence has seen there have been things we all agreed upon. we shouldn't have waste when people are facing hunger. and in the middle of the crisis i've seen quite a bit of bipartisanship consensus on trying to match it up and we're working now through a plan and hoping to get the logistics in place to deliver this quickly because there are people in crisis now and they can't wait. we're working very directly with farmers and work our way through. the federal government has a role to play and we're working on the dynamics of all those three.

host: wild and wonderful. echoing your comments, every day the u.s. throws away enough food to feed a nation, it's a travesty. bill next in albany, georgia. good morning. caller: i appreciate you taking my call. how are you doing? host: you bet. caller: i'm a disabled vet, older and my mom is 90 years old on oxygen. we have nonworking cars and you can't ride transportation now and we can't afford a taxi so we are really stuck. i get food stamps but not nearly enough with the extension that they give right now. it's hard. and i don't understand why we have military bases here and a marine base town the road, why you can't have them guys for people like us who have no transportation and can't deliver m.r.i. boxes to the door and drop them off.

they don't have to do anything, just drop them off the door and leave them there so we can have food. i called the food bank and no one will deliver no matter your situation. no one delivers food to you. we are stuck. e're in a bad situation. host: bill, good luck. guest: i recently visited albany, georgia. i was there last year. a remarkably resilient community who has had to deal with a lot of challenges coming on all at once. a lot of businesses have left the area. there are an inordinate number of children and elderly in albany. we've recently actually just refortified our efforts in albany in the hope of being ore helpful to that community.

and what i'd encourage your caller to do is go to feedingamerica.org and put in your zip code. there's more than one set of food banks out there. he one i can put my name and recognition among is feeding america. there are a lot of wonderful ones out there but i have a personal relationship with feeding america food bank. feed america.org. there's a food locator inside that website. just put in your zip code and it will direct you to the food bank that serves that community you're in. you reach out directly and say aire babineaux-fontenot told me to do this. the caller also mentioned the military. i don't know if you've seen but

there are lots of images of members of the national guard in particular coming out and elping us, one, with our distributions, our pack and distributions because of our lack of volunteers and also that can emphasis on safety and we are doing some direct deliveries and meals on wheels in fact is another remarkable organization and they do direct delivery to seniors. i bet there's a way for us to come up with a better solution for that family. i can hear in his voice how much he wants to be able to help his mom and he, if i heard correctly, he's actually a veteran himself. there's so many reasons -- there's no one in this country who should not know where they're going to get their next meal from, no one. i must admit i have a special place in my heart for the

elderly and those who served with distinction. surely we'll find a way to help this caller and hopefully he'll do what i ask and if he can't find relief in that venue then try to find me, i'm the only babineaux-nont not i know that works in our whole network. so we'll try our best to find a way to help him and help his mom. host: there's a picture in "the wall street journal" on friday of a food distribution center in the nation's capital, a little help, provisions are packed at our food distribution center? washington, d.c. they point the nations fallen amid the outbreak. what about people who want to donate nonperishable canned goods and other nonperishables to their food distributors, what should they do. guest: we have 200 food banks. and not every situation is the same. those c.e.o.'s of those food banks know what they need.

they know how they need it. they can be very, very helpful. when i say the c.e.o.'s, there are teams of professionals that work inside those food banks, the leaders of whom are the c.e.o.'s are executive directors, so in the washington, d.c. area, there's a remarkable c.e.o. at capital area food bank in d.c. who not only works on challenges of people eat drag but who has done some really meaningful work in a short period of time around understanding what the systemic causes are for hunger in her community and they've come up with programmatic design and efforts that were making progress before this crisis and we'll be leaning on activist crisis as well. feeding america.org, go to your food bank locator and put in the zip code. if you're in the d.c. area, you'll find that that capital area food bank is the one that it will likely send you to and ask them, what do you need and

they will be able to tell you what it is that they need. host: gary calling from broken bow, oklahoma. hello there. caller: hello. couple comments and yesterday on c-span a lady gave out a phone number to help you get meals on wheels. what's amazing to me, she gave one phone number for the entire nation. the odds of getting through on that phone is more than winning the lottery. there's no access to let anyone know i'm a 67 years old, i have cancer, i can't hardly walk, i certainly can't walk to a grocery store. i can't properly feed myself.

host: when is the last time you were able to get food delivered r have someone buy it for you? caller: i never have. i never have. can buy my own food but i don't have access to it. i leave my house once every three weeks to go get chemo treatments. i have cancer in my hip. i can't barely walk. host: you're seeking assistance from meals on wheels program in your area? caller: that would be a godsend for me. i did not eat yesterday. ost: you didn't eat yesterday? caller: so far today i have nothing to eat. i have food in the freezer but

like i said, i can't stand up long enough to cook. host: we hope people hear this and i'll let you go here and hear from babineaux-fontenot. good luck. guest: i don't know what the proper protocol would be to able to zoom in in understanding exactly where this gentleman is and for privacy reasons i understand there would be things necessary to protect his interests. but i did hear that he's in broken bow, oklahoma, and feeding america has enjoyed a really, really deep and meaningful partnership with meals on wheels for a very long time. i know that they're really mission driven people who desperately want to be helpful for people, our aging population that work inside that organization. i will take it upon myself to reach out to the people that i

know at meals on wheels and also reach out personally to the food bank that serves broken bow and see if there's a way for us to combine forces to make certain that we get to gary and to the other people like him who are out there. host: the good point on that, too. i'll ask our producer, claire, if you get that phone number and if it's ok to read on the air, assuming gary is continuing to watch, i'll ask our producer, perhaps we can get a phone number for the meals on wheels there in broken bow. he was talking i think perhaps of a nationwide toll-free he was unable to get through but if we can get a more specific phone number for broken bow or an email address, i think a phone number would be the best thing, gary, if you're watching, keep on watching and we'll try to do that before the end of the program. thanks for calling . let's get to larry in gladwin, michigan. you're on.

caller: hello. host: go ahead, larry. guest: my whole discussion is i go to the store to buy milk and all the shelves are empty and upsets me the farmers are throwing the milk on the ground and eggs. our whole town, you can't even go buy eggs up town, i have to o get them from the amish. host: we've talked about this a bit. it must be hard -- you mentioned the farmers being really in a tough situation over this but they really have no choice in terms of being able to deliver to organizations like you in the right sizes and amounts, correct? guest: it's a real challenge, it really is. but what i know, to acknowledge that something's difficult is only the first step. we then have a responsibility to work through those difficulties. and we've never had more of a responsibility to do that than we do right now.

so we are actively engaged and we have urgency to our engagement and it is happening on both sides and including the government in this as well. i think one of the things that i would -- you asked earlier .bout how people can help one of the things i implore people to think about, before this crisis happened, there were nearly 40 million people in this country who did not have consistent access to nutritious foods. 11 million of them were kids. almost six million were seniors. in a country that was throwing away 72 billion pounds of perfectly edible food a year and doesn't count household waste. there's systemic issues we need to address around food insecurity and what our estimations are, we've research scientists and remarkable people who work inside of our networks who have done impact

analysis to try to understand what do we think based upon what is normal today, the impact of a tradable food system will be over the course of the next six months because of this pandemic. and our early estimates are that's about 1.4 billion dollars. we also estimate that there will be about $17 million people who will be added to that already almost 40 million people who are food insecure. so i ask people, no matter what your politics are, i ask you that you remember these challenges that people are facing today and that we not forget about them when the health side of this challenge goes away. there will still be a food crisis in this country and it actually will have gotten worse because of this health crisis. so people can be informed about what is happening and if they can use their voices to ask the

people who they care about, the people they vote for, ask them what their positions are on some of these things. expect people to be bipartisanship and put all of the rest of it aside when it comes to making certain that the 22 million children in this country who rely upon free and reduced meals at school and for whom that meal is the only consistent access that they have to nutritious food in good times, i just hope that your listeners will join our network in being partners in ensuring that those kids can consistently rely upon food in the future as well when the pandemic, when the health scare is gone. and i'm confident in -- i have so much confidence in the american people and i've had people tell me, i must not be living in the same world they live in and i tell them you must not be living in the world i live in.

i've been the beneficiary of remarkable generosity my whole life. i see it every day in this work. i see people give a dime when they only have a dollar. i see people with a lot of wealth give a lot of money. and i value every contribution equally. and i see all of this generosity and it's because of the american spirit and our resilience that i'm confident we will find our way past this really difficult circumstance. i want to be -- in terms of the health care side of it, and the economy will get going again and investing, by the way, in the most vulnerable members of society because they have no other options is a great way to actually have an economic stimulus is to make certain that you have people who need to spend their money to go buy food, etc., they help to stimulate the economy as well. i'm just so hopeful that one of the things that we learn as a result of all of this pain is to continue to think about our neighbors and to think about

how do we address some of these systemic issues so we can help people to emerge from this crisis even better than they were before it happened. host: one more question for you. you mentioned the help of the u.s. military. barbara in cape girardo, have they reached out to the federal overnment to obtain from the distributing? guest: one of the supply is food we receive from the federal government. the number one source would be retail grossers, the second would be food we receive from the federal government. and then we are working on new innovative ways, public-private partnerships, how do we leverage the fact that there are these -- and leverage feels like the wrong term because it's a tragic circumstance but in this circumstance where we have all these restaurants who

have to shutter and close their doors because they have low volume through their current ability to serve, how do we bring all of that to bear when we have a food crisis and we are definitely working on coming up with creative and innovative solutions to that, too. i thank your audience for sking that question as well. host: we thank you for being with us, claire >> c-span's washington journal, live everyday with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up on monday morning, the response of u.s. health insurance companies to the coronavirus with our kaiser health news and our washington.

be sure to watch c-span's washington journal, live at 7:00 eastern on monday morning. be sure to watch washington journal primetime on monday, dr. he will be our guest live, starting at 8:00 p.m. is turned, taking your phone calls and questions on the coronavirus pandemic. housebers of the white coronavirus task force made the rounds on the sunday news programs. next, we will hear from dr. anthony fauci and stephen hahn on the status of the pandemic in the united states and the possible timeline for lifting restrictions. where we are right now is a result of the number of factors. the size of the country, i think it is unfair to compare us to south korea where they had an outb a