Demand for food assistance is rising, and the pressure can fall on food banks to help fill a gap.
In Maine, one Portland-area shelter found they were better able to meet need -- with refrigerated trucks.
The Good Shepherd Food-Bank is now able to provide refrigerated food more easily and efficiently to rural communities than before, when it relied on volunteers to pile up their cars with food and ice.
In that state alone the poverty rate increased to 12.5 percent in 2010, up from 11.4 in 2009.
The help is made possible by the People's Regional Opportunity Program and a Community Development Block Grant.