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Food banks see more need as donations fall

By DIANE STEINLE, Editor of Editorials
Published August 12, 2007

At this time of year, the shelves at Pinellas food pantries typically are well-stocked with food. Not this summer.

The number of hungry people visiting food pantries and food banks is up. Donations are down. The people who run the pantries are looking at their bare cupboards and wondering how they will make it the rest of the year.

"The donations are not keeping up with the food going out," said Kathi Trautwein, director of the RCS Food Pantry at 700 Druid Road in Clearwater. "It's got a lot of us in social services a little concerned."

In July 2006, the RCS Food Pantry served 1,613 families, she said. In July 2007, the number was 2,057. The pantry gave out food to 4,404 individuals in July 2006. This July, the number rose to 5,319 individuals.

The numbers are smaller but the trend is the same at the Church and Community Outreach Food Pantry located in the Safety Harbor Neighborhood Family Center at 1003 4th St. N.

The CCO pantry normally hands out staples to 60 to 70 families a week. On just one recent Monday, 35 people came in looking for food.

Dianna Kessel, family support specialist at the Safety Harbor center, and Judy Mitchell, president of Church and Community Outreach, say it is a sign of the times in Florida. Even two-income families are stressed, and increasing numbers of clients at area food pantries mention that their homes are in foreclosure.

"Even those who are not losing their homes are hanging on by the skin of their teeth," said Mitchell. "Florida is no longer a reasonable place to live."

The high cost of gasoline is a major factor straining family budgets, Kessel said. Not only do those who can't fuel their cars find it hard to get to work, but gasoline prices also have driven up food prices. Higher taxes and property insurance have impacted those who own homes, and also have led to rising apartment rents and higher prices for retail goods and services.

In addition to food, the RCS Food Pantry provides some rent and utility assistance. Because of higher rents and utility bills, RCS now runs out of assistance money mid-month.

And it isn't just Pinellas pantries that are struggling. The Volunteer Way Inc., a Pasco County food bank and pantry, wrote a letter to this newspaper last week reporting that they "have never seen so many people."

"We cannot keep enough food in our warehouse," the letter stated.

The shortages at food pantries result from a complex set of circumstances.

Kessel said the number of people relying on food banks and other social services began to rise after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, when tourism tanked and many people dependent on jobs in the tourism industry were laid off.

The numbers rose even higher after Florida's 2004 hurricane season and Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Kessel said. Not only did more people show up here needing help, but government funding of social services didn't keep pace and government commodity foods normally distributed to food banks to feed the poor were funneled to hurricane victims.

Several other factors are contributing to the bare shelves now.

For example, many pantries use cash donations to buy food at America's Second Harvest of Tampa Bay, part of a national organization that coordinates distribution of food for the poor and charges a handling fee of 18 cents per pound. But these days, pantry workers have to show up at the Tampa facility early in the morning or the food is gone, Kessel said.

Some grocery chains have stopped donating unsold fresh foods and meats to local pantries because they fear lawsuits if someone claims they got sick from the food.

Several local pantries are heavily dependent on donations of food and money from local churches, but as church members, like most of us, have found themselves less flush, the donations have decreased.

Local food pantries also have relied on the Letter Carriers Food Drive, a national event held each May, to stock their shelves through summer and fall. This year, the amount of food provided through that drive in Pinellas was way down compared with last year - "about half," said Trautwein.

With the need growing and the availability of food and money decreasing, I asked officials at food pantries how they planned to remain viable in the future. Their answers demonstrated just how precarious this thin safety net is for hungry people in Pinellas.

To save money on rent, the F.E.A.S.T. Food Emergency and Services Team Pantry in Palm Harbor moved out of its former storefront and into a doublewide trailer on the grounds of Grace Community Church, 2255 Nebraska Ave.

The pantry's executive director, retiree Walt Anderson, is going without a salary, he said, and 28 unpaid volunteers now staff the pantry. Volunteers are desperately needed at local pantries, in part because longtime volunteers and even employees have had to leave to earn more income for their families.

The F.E.A.S.T. board has talked about cutting the number of times regular clients can get food at the pantry from twice a month to one, but is hoping to avoid that desperate measure. RCS Food Pantry officials also have discussed reducing visits to once a month, but are holding off. Already, regular RCS clients who get food twice a month must have at least a 10-day gap between visits, even though they get only enough food to last three or four days.

Trautwein at RCS, like the directors of other local pantries, goes out into the community to mine new sources for food and dollars, but that is time-consuming when the facilities already are shorthanded. Trautwein thinks that food pantries will have to rely more heavily on private charitable foundations and good-hearted donors in the future.

"We're here to help, but we also need help," she said. "If you've got some extra, please share."

Diane Steinle can be reached at steinle@sptimes.com or (727)445-4184.

[Last modified August 12, 2007, 01:21:01]