Food Pantries: Long Lines, Short Supplies

Maria Chavez used to make $10 an hour cleaning houses - but now her customers can't afford the luxury of hiring her help. She needs work - any work, CBS News correspondent Ben Tracy reports.

She has two kids to feed, and doesn't want government help.

So the local food pantry is now her family's lifeline. Today was a good day - they put meat in her bag.

"There it is, now you can see it, this is the meat," she said. "Some people get so happy when they see a little of this kind of meat."

And as the economy worsens, lines at many food pantries across the nation are fully stocked, while the cupboards are increasingly bare. Ten-thousand people showed up for an annual Thanksgiving food giveaway in Los Angeles Tuesday.

In Dallas, the number of food shelf visits is up 25 percent. It's up 33 percent in Chicago and 41 percent in Los Angeles, according to Feed America and the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank.

"People are really hungry and we just don't have enough food," said Beth Greenburg, a food pantry volunteer.

So they're giving out less, and in some places are turning people away.

At one food bank in Los Angeles staff are working 18 hour days and shipping 1 million pounds of food out to food pantries every week, but it's still not enough to meet the growing need.

"We see this as a crisis situation we don't see going away in the near future," said Michael Flood, the CEO of the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank.

That's because there is a new class of people living life on the line.

"It's the middle class who say to me, 'I never thought I would be in this line,' and here they are," Greenburg said. "We all could be in this line."

Maggie Shelley lost her husband to cancer and at age 50, she can't find enough work to pay the bills.

"You don't look like you need to be here," Tracy said to her in the food line.

"That's exactly why I wanted to talk on camera because this is how far the economy has gone. This is who it's affecting: People like me. I've worked my whole life," she said.

Thirty-six million Americans - that's one in eight - now live on the brink of hunger, at times unsure where they will get their next meal, according to Feed America.

"I used to watch movies about stuff like this and now I am that movie," Shelley said. "It's very tough."

"It's hard to explain to our kids," Chavez said.

And as she began to cry, another woman in the line said: "That's right honey. You're absolutely right. We're going through the same thing."

They're looking to better times, yet still waiting for them to arrive.