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."
I only wish --- it's closer to $3.50 than $3 around here. Thankfully I have a practically unlimited supply of firewood and need little fuel oil. But I need the oil year round because that also fuels my hot water heater.
The national average is an hour commute
I’m not dinging on you Sparky.
I’m just trying to recognize that costs are way up for the average family
I agree. I’ve watched people with the food stamp debit card have grocery bills larger than mine, while we’ve got the same number of kids in the grocery cart. My selection includes canned vegetables and fresh fruit; theirs is little debbie, all soda, and one gallon of milk.
Beans, rice, tuna, milk, OJ, bread, PB and Jelly should be about all those card buy. It shouldn’t even allow purchase of junk food.
It is apropos this thread - a local brewery donated to a local charity.
Turned out the charity couldn’t take it, due to some alchohol law.
It also turned out, the brewery couldn’t take it back, due to some other obscure law.
So the entire truck got unloaded into my basement.
For about a year, anyone who walked up to my house (mailman, UPS, you name it...) got tipped with a case of beer.
LOL. I was a popular guy...
Teach them to fish.
I agree, I think illegals going to the food pantries are part of the problem. I also think that nowadays there are more "poor" people that are spending their money on the cable tv bill, flat screen tvs, dvds, video game players and games, expensive clothes and shoes. These "poor" people have absolutely no shame and feel they are entitled to line up at the food pantry because they are so "poor."
I bet you were!!!!!!!!!
I wish I was so "poor."
Close them down and put a sign on the door “go get a job and earn your keep”,
New wood stove arrives 4 Dec - I cannot wait!
Oh, trust me—I see it in other ways too...like when I had to get my driveway paved this year. Because of the cost of the asphalt, I paid nearly $1000 more than I would have if I had done it last year.
Well, they’d best do something because fuel drives this economy.
You ought to see what the Mainers buy at the local Market Basket on the first weekend of the month...amazing, really.
Fuel cost effect EVERYTHING
I agree. We just fed 125 people yesterday. Many of us donated the food. Many of these people are homeless, have no money for food, or are mentally ill. All are verified as needy. I packed many plates for them to take home for supper, and included in each package places that were having Thanksgiving dinners. I find it ignorant to talk down to the folks who have nothing and are hungry. I'm not in favor of the government handing them food stamps, but am all for people who can, helping people who can't. This isn't about government, but about hungry people. Work in a charitable organization, and you will see a lot of things you didn't previously know.
I'm hungry right now~!
I wish I was so poor to be able to have cable, flat screen, dvds, etc. My biggest splurge item...internet. I was shocked at the price of eggs yesterday...up nearly .50 in a week. I dunno know if it was holiday gouging or what, but my bill was $30 higher than normal. And no...there is not a T-Day dinner in my house this year.
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