Need Increases While Donations Fall -- Food Pantres in Crisis

The following story in today's paper comes out of the Cincinnati area, but I know that my own local food bank here in WV put out the same warning of a food shortage crisis. Demand is up and donations are down.

Ain't things grand? Millions are losing homes and jobs while the elite feast off the lifeblood of the nation's poor and middle classes. Can't afford a mortgage, a doctor visit, or food on the table? God bless Amurika!

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071115/NEWS01/711150368
Food pantries face hard times
Area's relief agencies cutting back to stretch supplies
BY PEGGY O'FARRELL

(excerpt)
"Right now, we're giving clients three or four days' worth of food, where before we gave them six or seven days' worth," said Liz Carter, executive director of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in Greater Cincinnati. "It's horrible."

From June through September, 6,604 people went to St. Vincent de Paul's West End food pantry for help - an 18 percent increase from the same period in 2006, Carter said.

At the same time, donations dropped about 30 percent in the last year or so.

Job losses, coupled with higher costs for food, fuel and utilities, push some families over the edge, Carter said....

Please remember your local food pantry. Thank you.

do a small food drive yourself. Find a nearby agency (mine is a church's soup kitchen) and offer to collect/deliver the items. Be sure to call the agency ahead of time, they often have preferences. It's not much to ask folks to pick up a couple more cans of tuna, pasta and pasta sauce, canned soups, cereal, etc and bring it in.

I did this in my tiny agency last Xmas and we had several bags full of nonperishable groceries collected!

Of course, food banks often like cash better, which is great. But some donors like the hands on approach of giving foodstuff itself.

The food bank I work with is also in crisis and we are in a really affluent area (Dupage County IL).

Organizing the drive is easy for any of you who want to attempt it.

1. Contact the food bank and tell them what you are doing.
2. Print up some flyers and/or notices, distribute about a week in advance. For the local school I work with, I put the notices in the kids' backpacks a week before. I run off enough flyers for each child and put them in the teachers' cubbies, who ensure the flyers get in the backpacks.
3. Set up some empty boxes at the drop off location/designated "spot".
4. Arrive at the end of the day, collect the food and drop it off at the food bank. At my daughter's elementary school of 330 kids, I usually collect 5 big boxes/month of food.

I urge anyone who has an extra HOUR (yes that's about all it takes to set up, organize and complete) to lend a hand with your local food bank. My kids have always helped out with this project. It's a great way to get your kids involved in really helping the needy too.

Anyone who wants to PM me, please feel free to do so if you have any further questions. This isn't just a holiday thing - the food banks need help collecting food all year long.

I take my neighbor to pick up what they have, but it's really sad to see that there are lots more people in the line and fewer items are given to each one than was the case a couple of years ago.

That's something else anyone can do who has a car, if they know someone who needs a RIDE to the food bank -- or to the grocery store if they have food stamps. Many people don't realize that a lot of folks don't have a car and are not able to take public transportation to pick up food! Or if they do have a car, they can't afford the gas anymore to make that one extra trip.

I now have to make one tankful last at least two months, and if my friend in WI didn't send me a check each month, I wouldn't have an internet connection.

"Trickle down" economics, ya know. And we know just what it is that's trickling down on us here at the bottom....