When cupboard is bare: Food pantries see sharp increase in hungry people

[ Originally published on: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 ]

As the costs of food and utilities continue to rise, many local food pantries have seen more people walking through their doors.

The influx has pantry coordinators and directors making more trips to the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts in Hatfield. They are considering having more distribution dates, buying more food to keep up with the demand and are hoping that the economy will level out in the upcoming months.

Dino Schnelle, the Community Action Center for Self-Reliance food pantry coordinator, said in 2006, about 30 to 35 families came in each month.

Schnelle said that in the first three months of 2008, about 400 families have come to the Osgood Street food pantry. That's about 130 a month on average -- a fourfold increase.

Salvation Army meal coordinator Peggy Rockwood said its Chapman Street pantry has seen more families and new people, which she attributed to the rising cost of food, heat and rent.

The Franklin County Community Meals Program has meal sites in Greenfield, Turners Falls and Orange. Executive Director Amy Clarke said, in terms of people visiting those sites, that Greenfield and Turners Falls are about even and that the number of people in Orange is up.

The Community Meals Program also has a pantry in Orange and Clarke said the pantry has given enough food to feed 731 more people in the first three months of this year, in comparison to what they did in those same months last year.

According to the information compiled by the Food Research and Action Center, the Department of Labor has said the cost of food at home rose 5.1 percent from February 2007 to February 2008.

Some food items that experienced double-digit increases in price during 2007, include: milk increased by 17 percent; rice and pasta increased by 13 percent; cheese increased by 15 percent, and bread increased by 12 percent.

Increasing food costs may prove to be a greater problem for families than soaring oil prices. The average household spends three times as much for food as gasoline, with food accounting for 13 percent of household spending compared for 4 percent for gas, according to the FRAC -- which is a national nonprofit organization working to improve public policies and public-private partnerships to eradicate hunger and under-nutrition in the United States.

Clarke said that less government food is available and that large grocery stories are giving less money. She said the meals program increased its food budget by 45 percent to cover the additional food expenses.

'We were fortunate that people were very generous to our program,' she said. 'That's the only way we made it.

'It is going to be a difficult year,' she said.

Faith E. Rockwood of the Franklin Area Survival Center in Turners Falls said its clientele has doubled.

Rockwood, who is the president of the board of directors, said the Turners Falls food pantry was just shy of serving 10,000 people during its last fiscal year, which went from Sept 30, 2006 to Sept. 30, 2007.

Rockwood said she expects that the food pantry will surpass that number by the end of this year because the number of new families coming to the pantry each month has doubled since last year. Last year, she said the pantry saw about 23 new families each month.

'It has a big effect,' said Rockwood about the rising costs of food.

She said the pantry buys weekly from the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts and as needed from the local grocery stores. She said the community also donates a large amount of food and that many local businesses give day-old breads and sweets.

Rockwood said the pantry is over its budget for food, but is still giving out the same amount of food as before. She said she is hoping that the economy will get better so the pantry won't have to spend as much.

She said, in the future, if the food supply lessens and the costs remain high, the pantry may have to reduce the amount of food that it gives out. She said this has never been done before and she hopes it never has to happen.

People have to meet federal guidelines to go to the food pantry, but Rockwood said anyone can come and get some of the bread and sweets out front if they are in need. The pantry is open 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.

'We look forward to the postal food drive,' she said. She said the one conducted by the National Association of Letter Carriers on May 10 is one of the most important food drives in the area.

Schnelle said the Center for Self Reliance's food pantry hasn't felt the effects of the increased food prices yet, but expects to feel the impact more next year.

Schnelle said the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Mass. Emergency Food Assistance Program and perishable food items don't cost the pantry money -- only the salvage food and 'buy-in' items.

Schnelle said salvage food is nonperishable food, such as canned goods, cereal and dry goods that come back from grocery stores and supermarkets and has been returned to the wholesale warehouse. This food then comes back to the Food Bank and can be bought at 18 cents per pound.

He said the Food Bank doesn't make any money in the process. About 30 percent of the food pantry food is salvage, about 30 percent is USDA and MEFAP and 5 percent buy-in or purchased wholesale.

Buy-in foods are in-code nonperishable food items that the Food Bank may not have in stock for free or as salvage, so the pantry buys it. This is usually protein items like frozen beef or turkey, tuna, peanut butter or staples like canned vegetables, fruits, cereal, pasta and soups.

'Their costs have not increased yet, (but) I suspect that by this summer we will see a change in that.'

'The price of food hasn't caught up yet,' he said. 'But, it is not very long before the food prices start impacting how much food we have.'

Sheila Litchfield, a coordinator of the Good Neighbors Food Pantry in Charlemont, said it has been costing the pantry more to buy food.

Litchfield said she has not seen a rise in the number of families the pantry serves, but she said she is seeing people running out of food between distribution dates.

The food pantry has six distributions each year, where about 70 families from Charlemont, Heath, Rowe and Hawley receive food.

She said she and other members of the pantry encourage their clients to use the other food pantries in the area, but she said it is still not enough.

She said the pantry primarily services families in the four west Franklin County towns, but said she has been receiving calls from people farther away requesting food.

At the pantry's last board meeting, she said the board discussed increasing the number of food distributions. They all recognized the need, but nothing has happened yet as they look at what additional resources would be required for the change, including more volunteers and storage space.

'The economy is awful,' she said, when asked what she thought was triggering the need for food.

'People don't have jobs that can help ends meet.'

 

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