Food Banks Report Surge in First Timers

(AP)  Prentice Jones worked construction jobs around Chicago for most of his 60 years and is quick to boast of a foreman job he once held at a revamped city college and 23 years at a steel company.

But these days, work has been so scarce that the man with a penchant for cowboy hats has been forced to move in with his mother and do something this week he never expected - visit a food pantry.

"There's no work now," Jones said while waiting in line at St. Columbanus Parish for a frozen turkey and bags of apples, bread and potatoes. "I pray it's temporary."

A surge in first time visitors has contributed to the greatest demand in years at food banks nationwide, according to Feeding America, a Chicago-based national food bank association. Many of the first timers were middle class but lost jobs or had their wages cut.

"They were doing pretty well," said Ross Fraser of Feeding America. "They've completely had the rug pulled out from under them."

Federal agencies and national organizations have just started tracking first timers. But anecdotal evidence and statistics from individual pantries is clear: More and more new faces are appearing among the approximately 25 million Americans who rely on food pantries each year.

St. Columbanus Pantry, which serves about 500 people a week on Chicago's South Side, has had up to 50 new people sign up each week since February.

The Friendly Center in Orange, Calif., serves 80 families a day, with about 20 new people trying to qualify each day, far more than last year.

And at the Community Kitchen and Food Pantry of West Harlem, N.Y., about 250 of the 1,000 people who show up each day - up from 750 this time last year - are newcomers.

"The line has grown so long that when you walk outside, it's overwhelming," said Jesse Taylor, senior director at the pantry. "A lot of people are coming out in suits, they're carrying brief cases."

Food banks across the country report about a 30 percent increase in demand on average, but some have seen as much as a 150 percent jump in demand from 2008 through the middle of this year, according to Feeding America.

Reliance on food banks and the number of Americans using food stamps - at least 35 million currently - are two indicators of hunger. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said earlier this month that 49 million people, or 14.6 percent of U.S. households, struggle to put food on the table, the most since the agency began tracking food security levels in 1995.

First timers to food banks have worries others might not experience.

For starters, they may not know what to do.

"Some don't have the coping skills, they've never been in this situation," said Elizabeth Donovan, a director at the Northern Illinois Food Bank, which serves 13 counties. "Asking for help is difficult."

Jones was cajoled into coming into the food pantry by a friend who knew where to go, where to wait and how to apply for services.

But others say the experience is fraught with shame, confusion or anger.

"We're hearing from more and more middle class who have never in their life gone to a food pantry," said Diane Doherty, an executive director at the Illinois Hunger Coalition. "They're very, very frustrated and angry."

About half of the almost 40,000 families who have been fed at Holy Family Food Pantry in Waukegan, Ill., about 40 miles north of Chicago, are new, services director Barb Karacic said.

They include Gail Small, a 55-year-old school bus driver who got laid off from her $16 an hour job at the Waukegan Public School District earlier in the year and hasn't been able to find work since.

"It was very embarrassing," Small said. "I didn't tell my children. I didn't tell my dad."

Others say at some point, the need to survive trumps emotions.

Linda Herrera, 59, went to All Saints Parish on Detroit's southwest side for the first time this week. Herrera, who is on state assistance, said the embarrassment of having to pick up food was offset by her empty cupboards.

"We were down to practically nothing," she said, carrying out bags containing juice, mashed potatoes, dried milk, rice and beans. "I'm trying to just make it now 'til the end of the month, until I get my check."

[Dgunner]

Until we p---s off the pope. We have lots of room to work with.

[searingtruth]

Giving trillions of dollars to billionaires, instead of their victims the people, has only assured our coming depression, as evidenced by an ever increasing unemployment rate, and the rapid transfer of the trillions we have given away to overseas interests.

Oh yes, the billionaires are doing better than ever, while the people suffer in anguish, despair, and poverty.

Not the "economic recovery plan" I would have chosen.

I would have chosen, instead of fascism, our historic moderated capitalism, and brought it back into balance and the light of day. But instead we're trying fascism, with government supporting the businesses they like, and destroying those they don't.

We should have let failing corporations, no matter how big, fail. And saved the trillions we tossed to those who had brought us to our knees for the people, distributing it during the inevitable depression to come so we could have shelter, food, and health care.

But instead the trillions are gone, and the depression is coming anyway.

Economies don't trickle down, they bubble up.

As we are soon to relearn.
ST


"The Republican and Democratic parties have delivered us into the hands of darkness."
SearingTruth

A Future of the Brave

[nowhiningallowed]

Don't forget that the wealthy contribute the vast majority of donations to charitable organizations, hospitals, and foundations. Don't just blame the wealthy. A lot of folks got themselves into trouble by living beyond their means and not being prepared for a financial crisis, or expecting the government to do everything for them. There's nothing wrong with the free market system. But there is something wrong with government trying to control everything, including one's obligation to be self-sufficient, self-reliant, accountable and responsible, versus government reliant, self-deficient, irresponsible and unaccountable. It works both ways. Greed in Wall St. types and greed in Main St. types.

[rightbehind]

Contract labor needs to be stopped. The jobs are no longer good and in most cases upper management at the job source are lining their pockets because they are stockholders at the contract company.

[retm-w]

A lot of these jobs are going to illegals, since they will work for less then half of the going rate. It's all over in the construction industry.

[rightbehind]

Cause and effect. 18 more republican senate seats on the ballot in 2010. Let's outsource their jobs to democrats. Don't forget about the republicrats. We need to send them packing as well.

[retm-w]

Outsource to independents not democrats.

[brianbwb-2009]

retm-w

A tempting idea, except for the fact that those now calling themselves "independents" include the kkk, who supported Ron Paul, and other far right neo-nazi groups, frustrated because the GOP has begun to moderate slightly their traditional rhetoric of ethnic and religious intolerance.

The GOP now couches their intent in "code" but the far right "independents" see no need for such, they want someone who will wear their swastikas on the sleeve.

[babooph]

The massive military spending,sold as protection for the US,may now be cut-since Reagan & little Bush -there is a lot less to protect-why pay to protect the rich?

[rightbehind]

We're spending almost 10 billion a month over in iraq.

[stryker54]

Obama will have us all begging for food, anlong with idiots senators and congressman/woman.

[rightbehind]

This nation is in this condition as a result of the econmics of dung. republican free trade ideology and tax breaks for the wealthy has done this. Cause and effect. I say 18 more republican senate seats on the ballot in 2010. Let's send them all packing.