Photo/Illutration A D x P staff member packs food for delivery to young people in Osaka on Nov. 25. The contents are adjusted to suit each recipient’s living situation. (Akina Nishi)

As the year-end and New Year’s holidays approach in a blizzard of rising costs, many young people are struggling to cover even basic expenses such as grocery and utility bills. 

The youth-support nonprofit organization D x P on Nov. 26 released the results of a survey with 531 usable responses about concerns during the holiday season.

Asked what kind of support they need around the turn of the year, 50 percent cited “having food delivered to their home.”

It was followed by 35 percent who requested “assistance with heating bills” and 31 percent who picked “places where they can eat for free.” Multiple answers were allowed.

Some voiced their distress in the free-response comments.

“Prices are soaring even though my wages are not going up. I sometimes skip meals to save on food costs,” a 19-year-old woman wrote.

A 21-year-old man lamented, “Electricity is so expensive that I cannot turn on the air conditioner even when it is minus 10 degrees outside.”

D x P, pronounced “dee-pee,” conducted the survey in October targeting about 19,000 registered users of Yukisaki Chat, its counseling service on the Line messaging app for people ages 13 to 25.

“We need to broadly reach out online and through other channels and build real-world connections so that struggling young people who cannot rely on their parents can make it through New Year’s,” Noriaki Imai, director of the nonprofit organization, told a news conference in Tokyo on Nov. 26.

D x P, based in Osaka, launched the counseling service in 2018 and began providing food assistance to young people in 2020 after the onset of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The group sends a package of 30 meals, such as retort-pouch food products, once or twice a month after conducting an online interview and ID verification.

The number of meals shipped has increased each year along with continually rising prices.

Currently, about 3,000 meals are sent each week to about 100 recipients, half of whom are students on scholarships.

“Every year around the holidays, we receive more inquiries from young people who cannot pay for kerosene or air conditioning,” said Yukiko Oda, who oversees the Yukisaki Chat service. “With inflation this year, we are sending out even more meals than last year.”

To deliver food to more young people in need, D x P is seeking support through a crowdfunding campaign: (https://readyfor.jp/projects/dxp-sos-2025winter).

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