Food Pantry Cupboards Growing Bare

Due To Increasingly High Living Costs, Demand Is Outweighing Supply For The Hungry

(CBS/AP)  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."

Operators of free food banks say they are seeing more working people like Blasingame needing assistance. The increased demand is outstripping supplies and forcing many pantries and food banks to cut portions.

"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."

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.

Some food banks are facing record shortages. In Michigan, banks are down more than a million meals since last year. In Kansas, they're down 385,000 meals. And in Los Angeles alone, banks are down more than 3 million meals since 2006, CBS News correspondent Seth Doane reports.

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."

At the Food Bank for New York City, the nation's largest food bank, the supply this month is half what it was last year.

"In the 20 years I've been at the food bank, this is the worst I've seen," Lucy Cabrera, the food bank's CEO, told Doane.

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."

[cyberus-2009]

Stores and restaurants throw food away rather than give it away as a rule for one simple reason ... liability.
Someone gets sick and there will be a lawyer whispering sweet millions in their ear within hours, and the cost of simply defending against such can destroy a business.
Years ago we used to give roast "end cuts" and leftover baked potatoes to the city mission kitchen, who would in turn make stew, a practice that the insurance company brought to an end.

[grammawhamma]

I saw a show on TV about a year ago about a church that fed the poor. The retired women of this congregation, the ones that loved to cook, spent their time cooking big batches of lasagne and roasts etc and the poor would come to the church to eat this home made food. The government tried to shut them down because the food was made without health inspections or a license. The poor people protested and said the dumpsters they ate out of also were not inspected by the health department. I am happy to say the church won.

[grammawhamma]

Michelle: A bag of frozen veggies is less then $1.00 a pound. It can be cooked in the microwave...that''s how I make it. I know what it''s like to live on a fixed income.

My daughter works at McDonalds. When cooked hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, etc reach a certain shelf time limit (I''m guessing about ten minutes)...they must be tossed in the garbage. I don''t see why they can''t be refidgerated and sent to a homeless shelter to be reheated later. I was taught waste not want not as a child.

[michellem99-2009]

crzmeat yer said it. My friend has to throw most of it away as it is unfit to eat. I was wondering when some one would bring that up. The stores deli throws a way good food in the trash when they are closing down that as they do every day when they could give it to people in the store who could take it home to eat. No they won''t. It is bloody wasteful but the store can''t give it to away store rules. It is a pity. It pisses me. They pitch it and it was made that day. Nothing wrong with the deli food they rather do that than use it to feed those who could use it, They can''t give that to a food bank. And they sure won''t give it to hunray people who could use it on a daily basis..I asked it was a no go. Greed and money..Barbara.

[Krazcarl]

the food banks give expired food was laid up a few years back got some chow and had to throw it all away it was old no good the experation dates were up it was one step in front of a dumpster was nothing but a a tax write off for the stores.

[jetranger7]

WARNING-WARNING : If "Diesel-FUEL" get much higher, for the Truckers, isn''t anybody going to be eating to much, either because it going to cost to much to ship and haul the food, or, because the Cost of buying groceries is going to sky rocket so high, NOBODY can afford to eat and pay these Ridlicious Gas prices, house/Rent payments-Utilities, car insurance etc, folloed by Massice Job Lay offs every where, followed by Grocery stores going bankrupt and out of business , followed by gas stations closing up, then nobody gets any fuel !! Thanks Bush & Republicans you lied !!!

[michellem99-2009]

I don''t need to check the prices as yer got to be rich to eat right and I buy what I can afford and can fix as a legally blind person. It is one meal aday. I know that is right to eat, I am 53. That is the cheapest. That is life on a fixed income. I live with a heart/diabetes/COPD room mate. Ye do the best yer can.

[michellem99-2009]

I CAN ONLY AFFORD THEM DOLLAR TV DINNERS AS I HAVE TO USE THE MICROWAVE AS I CAN''T USE THE STOVE.

[jetranger7]

Ohh Don''t Worry about it ! Believe me theres enough food to feed every nation in the world except the USA,,because at the rate the Governments been going the last 25 years, were all gonna die anyway, thats their long range plan is to sit back and watch us starve and fight for food, let the banks take our homes & cars, watch our jobs go to some other country, meanwhile lets ship a whole bunch of Aid and food to some 3rd world country, and then find out that maybe only a 1/4 of it ever really reached those in need !! Now were in need, and guess what too badd, simply put were F*C*ED !!

[cyberus-2009]

Want to help? Donate to your local food bank.

BUT .. IMO if you want to do the most good stay away from the pre-packaged sugar/fat/etc laden items, that box of snack pack pudding may make a kid happy for a few minutes but a big bag of generic puffed rice cereal (for instance) will provide breakfast for a week .. for about the same money.
Or, do what I do, hit the local asian and hispanic markets for 20-50lb bags of staple goods like beans and rice, toss in a big box of zip bags and feed many for a not so much money. BTW this works well for mission/shelter kitchens, I just dropped off a bag of rice, a bag of cornmeal, and a flat of eggs ( for t-day cornbread dressing) yesterday.
Don''t get me wrong .. if you have the means to supply canned goods and better goods please do .. but if you don''t have the means a big bag of beans or rice can go a long way towards stretching the other goods in the food bank.