Posted on 11/22/2007 7:27:08 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
Operators of free food banks say they are seeing more working people needing assistance. The increased demand is outstripping supplies and forcing many pantries and food banks to cut portions.
Demand is being driven up by rising costs of food, housing, utilities, health care and gasoline, while food manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers are finding they have less surplus food to donate and government help has decreased, according to Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks.
"I've been doing this for 20 years, and I can't believe how much worse it gets month after month," she said.
Diana Blasingame has lately found herself having to go to a free food pantry once a month to feed herself and her teenage daughter.
"I'm pretty good at making things stretch as far as I can, but food is so high now and I have to have gas in my car to do my job," said Blasingame, 46, who earns $9 an hour as a home health aide. "I work full time, but I don't have health insurance and sometimes there just isn't enough to pay bills and buy food."
"We have food banks in virtually every city in the country, and what we are hearing is that they are all facing severe shortages with demand so high," Ross Fraser, a spokesman for America's Second Harvest — The Nation's Food Bank Network, the nation's largest hunger relief group, said Friday. "One of our food banks in Florida said demand is up 35 percent over this time last year."
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's annual hunger survey released Wednesday showed that more than 35.5 million people in the United States were hungry in 2006. While that number was about the same as the previous year, heads of food banks and pantries say many more people are seeking their assistance.
Tony Hall, vice president of the Food Bank of Southwest Georgia, estimates a 10 percent to 20 percent increase in demand for food in the 20-county area the organization serves. He cites cutbacks by local companies, rising fuel costs and the lingering impact of a March tornado that tore through Americus, Ga., destroying or damaging hundreds of homes.
"We really didn't rebound from that," Hall said Friday. "We're definitely down in donations. Each year the demand gets bigger and bigger."
Supplies are down to a little over 8 million pounds of food from a peak of about 12 million pounds two years ago at Hocking-Athens-Perry Community Action, which provides food bank services in 10 counties in southeast Ohio.
"We've lost factory jobs and many service jobs don't pay a livable wage," said Dick Stevens, director of the organization's food and nutrition division. "We see a lot of desperation in families who are trying to figure out how to pay higher fuel and utility costs and still put food on the table."
Most food banks and pantries aren't optimistic about the coming winter.
"November weather has been relatively mild, and you haven't seen the cost of home heating fuel added to what a family has to deal with," said Evelyn Behm, associate director of the Mid-Ohio Food Bank, which supplies food to pantries, soup kitchens and other charities in 20 central and eastern Ohio counties. "Those prices, we all know, are going up substantially this year."
At the Society of St. Vincent de Paul food pantry in Cincinnati, clients now get three or four days' worth of food instead of six or seven.
"We are trying to stretch our resources to help more people," said Liz Carter, executive director of the society. "But it's so difficult when you see the desperation and have to tell them you just don't have enough to give them what they need."
Officials with the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York, which serves nearly 1,000 agencies in 23 counties, also are worried.
Through the end of August, the food bank was down almost 700,000 pounds of USDA commodities that include basic essentials such as canned fruit and vegetables and some meat — food that is very difficulty to make up in donations, Executive Director Mark Quandt said.
"We're bracing ourselves for a very tough winter, especially with home heating fuel prices at record highs in the Northeast," Quandt said. "People living in poverty or near poverty just can't sustain those types of increases."
It never occurs to these self-appointed saints that if you give away free food, the word will get around. It is probably insensitive to expect them to realize, there are plenty of comfortable but rather degraded people out there who will take whatever they can get, whether they 'need' it or not. In Cleveland today there are multiple churches and restaurants serving thousands of free Thanksgiving meals to "the Poor." I think this is a fine thing. But hosts of people will drive in from the surrounding neighborhoods for a free meal and then drive back home. Been there and seen it.
Excellent point. Ten million alien moochers living off the fat of the land does make a difference doesn't it.
It costs me $40-$50 a month for gas per vehicle. I live about 15 minutes from work. Even if you tripled the length to work and cut my mpg by half to around 16, that around $100 less than the $350 listed there--and that is not very optimal conditions.
According to articles where they're whining about their low wages, I've noted most of them are making more per hour than I do.
The last figure I saw for our illegal alien invader population was 38 million. Any correlation? /s
In my "home" state/county, Bill Gates could go to any food pantry or church and load up his car. There is no proof of need required...no accountability.
A local church would regularly bring in a tractor trailer full of food for the "needy". Word spread around the county about "welfare day" at the church and you couldn't get anywhere near the place. Unfortunately, there was ample parking available on Sunday mornings.
I have had the pantry raiders offer me peanut butter, cereal, cheese, butter, pasta, rice, frozen juice, and cases of canned vegetables because they could not fit any more in their cupboards.
I could go on and on with stories of this nature, some taking place in Oakland! The waste I saw there is unparalleled.
“It costs me $40-$50 a month for gas per vehicle.”
You are an exception then, because most folks drive about 50-60 mi ea way.
And my vehicle gets 20 mph
Do they make donations for the meal?
What I am getting at, is that I take a van load of teenagers to a fundraiser breakfast every month.
I donate $5 for my breakfast, but the kids eat free.
They do the dishes. Literally.
The St. Vincent de Paul group in my parish had a very successful food drive for Thanksgiving. When the pastor told parishioners that SVdP still needed 20 turkeys, parishioners donated 46. Also, the local news broadcast a story last week about a local corporation that donated 500 turkeys to a local food bank.
Every year at this time we hear about how food banks are struggling, about how donations are down, and demand is up. Of course, if the people who run these food banks don’t make sure that the people receiving the donations are really in need, they will get people who aren’t really in need showing up for free food.
Finally, the St. Vincent de Paul Society does not indiscriminately give away food or money. It always makes sure that the people receiving the donations have exhausted other avenues of help and really do need help. Also, assistance is temporary not permanent.
Sounds familiar, see my previous post.
We're paying more than double that for gas, and we combine errands and don't make any unneccessary trips (simply can't afford it). A couple years ago when gas reached $2/gal, the family budget was hit hard and we gave up a lot. Now that gas is $3 it's... well, beyond bad especially since neither of us have gotten a pay raise in years. No, suggesting a another job isn't in the cards with retirement around the corner. Things are getting tight for more than just the lowlifes.
Thats my experience as well.
This is worse then every November. These drama queens in the press sat on this story until Thanksgiving morning that they probably or could have published weeks or months ago, giving it maximum exposure to people about to stuff themselves silly with food, but a little too late to really help anyone.
You are not allowed to be happy.
EVER!
The MSM will ensure that.
How do you “plan” for fuel costs increasing 30% in a year?
Our church runs a food pantry for area folks. You can make fun of this all you want, but we’re experiencing exactly what this story says. More working people needing help and nearly empty shelves.
BTW, those aren’t my costs. I live 5 mi from work.
I have never had that luxury before.
I can get by for close to a month on a fillup if all I do is go to work and back and local errands
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