Supply-side troubles

In slow economy, donations to food pantries may not feed all the hungry

Living Bread Food Pantry coordinator Becky Simon pulls a sign into view of drivers on Route 106 in Plainville to solicit help for families in need. (Rose Lincoln for the Boston Globe)

Demand is starting to outstrip supply at the Living Bread Food Pantry in Plainville, where coordinator Becky Simon is banking on the kindness of others to fill the shelves.

Living Bread recently recorded a 15 percent increase in the number of people seeking assistance from the food program, which is housed in the basement of Plainville Methodist Church. Faced with 30 area residents visiting the pantry each week for food and other household goods, Simon has posted a sign on Route 106 in her effort to encourage more donations.

"For just a little, bitty pantry, that hurts," Simon said of the increase. "But ask, and you shall receive."

Living Bread is one of a number of Massachusetts food pantries that are striving to meet rising demand. A plummeting economy, coupled with soaring food and fuel prices, has caused an unprecedented increase in need across the state, say pantry workers, even as donations in many cases have lagged, leaving agencies like Simon's struggling.

"Is it worse than I've ever seen?" said Eileen O'Shea, director of member services for the Greater Boston Food Bank, which provides 30 million pounds of food and grocery products a year to 600 hunger-relief agencies in Eastern Massachusetts that feed about 83,000 people a week. Based in Roxbury, the organization has an annual budget of nearly $50 million. "Yes, definitely. And we haven't even hit the winter yet."

According to O'Shea, the food bank has a warehouse full of food, but, she said, "it comes in and it goes right out again."

When donations drop, pantries and other agencies that feed those in need are forced to buy food, which is more difficult now that the price of spaghetti sauce is up 63 percent, peanut butter has risen 19 percent, and even ground turkey costs 10 percent more, O'Shea said.

In a survey of 25 Massachusetts food pantries commissioned by the state's food banks in April, 96 percent said demand for food rose in the past year, said Stacy Wong, spokeswoman for the Greater Boston Food Bank. Another 52 percent said they had run out of food to meet the demand.

Last July, the American Red Cross Food Pantry in Waltham served 1,098 people, said Maureen Schnellmann, senior director of food and nutrition for the American Red Cross of Massachusetts Bay. "This July, we saw 1,258. That's a direct result of the high cost of food and gas."

The Waltham agency served 14,926 people last year, which translates to 172,000 pounds of food, according to Schnellmann. "We're very fortunate we have walk-in refrigerators and freezers," she said, "because the need is so great and the supply of food is not great."

Some area pantries are doing better than others.

"We have not yet experienced a shortage of donations," said Patty Shaffer, who runs the Natick Service Council Food Pantry. "They are consistent and solid."

However, the number of clients visiting the pantry was up 20 percent in June, according to Shaffer.

"There are definitely more families making a choice to get food from the food pantry, as much as they hate the thought of it, so they can use their disposable income for fuel and to put gas in the car," she said.

The Natick pantry serves 36 families a month, but Shaffer said that in recent weeks there have been consistent requests for emergency help from residents who have become unemployed, or have run out of food completely.

"I don't turn anybody away," she said. "We were expecting times to be tough, so we had two huge food drives in the spring. We were like squirrels and loaded up."

In Needham, the Community Council Food Pantry, now 25 years old, serves about 150 families a month.

"We're definitely busy," said director Sandy Robinson. "And our supplies are definitely low."

Like many similar agencies, the Needham pantry expanded its hours beyond the weekend, opening up one evening a week to accommodate people who may be working, but still need help. While it isn't at a crisis point, the pantry is clearly cutting back, according to Robinson.

"Instead of sending someone home with four cans of tuna fish, we say, 'let's give three,' " she said. "People forget there is a need, particularly in a community that is considered well-off. So the truth is, there are very few resources. We're the one place you can go."

Local food pantries still receive some support from Project Bread through its Walk for Hunger, the oldest annual pledge walk in the country, which provides millions of dollars each year in privately donated funds to more than 400 emergency food programs in 126 communities statewide.

Also, as part of a program that is in its ninth year, Middlesex Savings Bank recently donated $1,000 each to food pantries serving the communities in which it has a branch. Among the beneficiaries of the bank's contributions were agencies that serve a number of area communities, including Framingham, Holliston, Hopkinton, Maynard, Medfield, Millis, Natick, Needham, Southborough, Sudbury, Wayland, and Wellesley. The bank, founded in 1835, is headquartered in Natick.

A 2006 study by America's Second Harvest, a nationwide food bank network, said more than 25 million Americans go hungry each day, 42 percent of whom live in rural or suburban areas.

The face of hunger has changed, said Red Cross official Schnellmann. "And people's perception of who's hungry has changed," she said. "It's the working family. People are working hard out there. It's not that they aren't trying. In fact, each of us is not that far away from being in a bad situation. It certainly keeps you humble."

Michele Morgan Bolton can be reached at mmbolton1@verizon.net