HUNGER and shame can walk hand in hand. This year is particularly punishing because high fuel prices and other factors are driving up the costs of food - and driving up, too, the demand for help at food pantries.
Some people who a year earlier had donated to the Falmouth Service Center find themselves coming back a year later because they themselves need help.
"It is very humbling," says Brenda Swain, executive director of the center, which runs a food pantry on the Cape. Swain says people who need food sometimes hesitate to accept it from the pantry, insisting that others need it more. So Swain tells people that they can take food and give back, donating their children's old clothes or tending a plot in the center's community garden, which requires keeping half and giving half to the pantry.
The state Legislature does similar work by funding the Massachusetts Emergency Food Assistance Program. It's money that food banks use to buy protein-rich staples such as eggs, milk, and ground turkey. Unfortunately, the program's 2008 budget was cut by $1 million to $11 million.
Today, Catherine D'Amato, president of the Greater Boston Food Bank, will be at the State House, calling on legislators to increase the program to $12.6 million - a modest request that should be granted. D'Amato, Swain, and their colleagues will argue that this money will help feed hungry people and stir up economic activity that will also help farmers, wholesalers, and truck drivers.
In addition, families will also speak about their struggle to make ends meet at the dinner table. Many of those who need help are not the poorest of the poor. Some of them work, and their income makes them ineligible for food stamps.
Massachusetts has to weave a stronger safety net, catching up in a world where milk costs more than $4 a gallon.
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