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By Bobbie Whitehead
With a U.S. Department of Agriculture report showing that more families in 2008 had a difficult time keeping food on the table, food pantries and other charities say the number of people they help continues to grow.
Organizations such as the Suffolk Salvation Army and the Foodbank of the Virginia Peninsula as well as the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle in Raleigh need more food and monetary donations now since more food is going out than what is coming in.
The Foodbank of the Virginia Peninsula reports a 25 percent increase in the number of people it has served since 2008, according to Katie Whitehead, the agency’s capital campaign manager and executive assistant.
“We’re putting out more pounds of food than we’re taking in,” Whitehead said. “This is not normal. We’re serving more working families than ever before. To assist our agencies, we are still looking for hams and turkeys and traditional side dishes.”
With a U.S. Department of Agriculture report showing that more families in 2008 had a difficult time keeping food on the table, food pantries and other charities say the number of people they help continues to grow.
Organizations such as the Suffolk Salvation Army and the Foodbank of the Virginia Peninsula as well as the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle in Raleigh need more food and monetary donations now since more food is going out than what is coming in.
The Foodbank of the Virginia Peninsula reports a 25 percent increase in the number of people it has served since 2008, according to Katie Whitehead, the agency’s capital campaign manager and executive assistant.
“We’re putting out more pounds of food than we’re taking in,” Whitehead said. “This is not normal. We’re serving more working families than ever before. To assist our agencies, we are still looking for hams and turkeys and traditional side dishes.”
Donations needed; more families seek emergency food
Food pantries and charities still need donations.
In North Carolina, the amount of U.S. Department of Agriculture Emergency Food Assistance Program commodities, staples provided to states to support emergency food facilities, has more than doubled compared to last year.
“Last year, we moved $9 million USDA commodities,” said Andrea Ashby, N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services spokesperson. “This year, we’re anticipating moving $30 million by year’s end. There is such a greater need.”
Such figures shouldn’t be surprising since a USDA report, released last month, shows an increase in the number of U.S. households having difficulty providing enough food for all of their members throughout the year.
Study Findings
In the latest report by the USDA Economic Research Service, “Household Food Security in the United States, 2008,” researchers found that 14.6 percent, up from 11.1 percent in 2007, of U.S. households didn’t have an adequate amount of food.
“These households, at some time during the year, had difficulty providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources,” wrote researchers Mark Nord, Margaret Andrews and Steven Carlson. “About one-third of food-insecure households (6.7 million households, or 5.7 percent of all U.S. households) had very low food security, up from 4.7 million households (4.1 percent) in 2007, and the highest level observed since nationally representative food security surveys were initiated in 1995.”
Food insecurity rates were highest for families “with incomes near or below the Federal poverty line, households with children headed by single women or single men, and Black and Hispanic households,” according to the report.
From 2007 to 2008, researchers found the largest increases in the frequency of “very low food security” occurred in families headed by single females with children and in families whose incomes were below poverty level or slightly above poverty level.
Other findings showed that people living in large cities and rural areas were more likely to experience food insecurity than those living in suburban or communities near large cities.
“Regionally, food insecurity was most prevalent in the South, intermediate in the Midwest and West, and least prevalent in the Northeast,” Nord, Andrews and Carlson reported.
But researchers found that “[w]hen households experience very low food security in the United States, the resulting instances of reduced food intake and disrupted eating patterns are usually occasional or episodic but are not usually chronic.”
Agency Needs
To help emergency food facilities in North Carolina, The State Farmers Market in Raleigh will host the annual “Week of Giving,” from Dec. 6-12, to benefit the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, which has collected food daily for food pantries since 1991, according to the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
Shoppers and other donors can leave whatever nonperishable food items or monetary donations they’d like under the farmers market’s “Giving Tree” in the Market Shoppes area to aid pantries in Wake, Durham, Orange, Chatham, Johnston, Edgecombe and Nash counties, the NCDACS reports.
The Salvation Army in Suffolk, Va., needs food for the upcoming holidays and bell ringers since it is serving more people this year, said Maj. Irene Clatterbuck, corps officer.
“We can always use canned foods and any donations,” Clatterbuck said. “Right now, we’re low on food – turkeys and canned foods.”
The Suffolk Salvation Army also picks up fruits and vegetables from a local grocery store every day. These produce items are distributed daily at the Suffolk Salvation Army Bank Street location.
Families in need do not have to fill out an application for the fresh fruits and vegetables since Clatterbuck said the office tries to distribute these items as quickly as possible. Families, she said, sign up, noting how large their family is, and take what they need, though the organization limits the amount of certain items that can be taken at times.
“We always feel the more we take in and give, the more the Lord gives us,” Clatterbuck said.
In Western Tidewater, the Franklin Cooperative Ministries, too, needs food – nonperishables – as well as winter clothing and money. The organization also accepts items such as tea, coffee, juices, canned meat, cereal, canned and dried beams, peanut butter, jelly, muffin and bread mixes, saltine crackers, ready-to-eat puddings and Jell-Os, small bottles of water or juices, canned fruits and vegetables and Pop Tarts. What the cooperative doesn’t want, though, are large cans and containers of food items, and it cannot accept out of date items.
Along with food, the Franklin Cooperative Ministries reports that families also need toilet paper, personal hygiene products, diapers for babies and adults and dishwashing and laundry detergents.
Throughout the year, the Foodbank of the Virginia Peninsula accepts canned foods, easy-to-prepare meals such potted meat, hardy soups, high protein items, peanut butter and baby food, Whitehead said.
The Foodbank, which has distributed more produce than any other state foodbank, also accepts fresh fruits and vegetables of all kinds throughout the year for the children’s programs, she said.
To make a donation to foodbanks and other emergency food programs, contact the following:
Foodbank of the Virginia Peninsula
9912 Hosier St.
Newport News, Virginia 23601
(757) 596-7188
http://www.charityadvantage.com/foodbank/MakingADifference.asp
Suffolk Salvation Army
400 Bank Street
Suffolk, Virginia 23434
(757) 539-5201
http://www.salvationarmyusa.org/usn/www_usn_2.nsf
Franklin Cooperative Ministries
(757) 516-6322
Inter-Faith Food Shuttle
Raleigh, North Carolina 27603
http://www.foodshuttle.org/
“Last year, we moved $9 million USDA commodities,” said Andrea Ashby, N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services spokesperson. “This year, we’re anticipating moving $30 million by year’s end. There is such a greater need.”
Such figures shouldn’t be surprising since a USDA report, released last month, shows an increase in the number of U.S. households having difficulty providing enough food for all of their members throughout the year.
Study Findings
In the latest report by the USDA Economic Research Service, “Household Food Security in the United States, 2008,” researchers found that 14.6 percent, up from 11.1 percent in 2007, of U.S. households didn’t have an adequate amount of food.
“These households, at some time during the year, had difficulty providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources,” wrote researchers Mark Nord, Margaret Andrews and Steven Carlson. “About one-third of food-insecure households (6.7 million households, or 5.7 percent of all U.S. households) had very low food security, up from 4.7 million households (4.1 percent) in 2007, and the highest level observed since nationally representative food security surveys were initiated in 1995.”
Food insecurity rates were highest for families “with incomes near or below the Federal poverty line, households with children headed by single women or single men, and Black and Hispanic households,” according to the report.
From 2007 to 2008, researchers found the largest increases in the frequency of “very low food security” occurred in families headed by single females with children and in families whose incomes were below poverty level or slightly above poverty level.
Other findings showed that people living in large cities and rural areas were more likely to experience food insecurity than those living in suburban or communities near large cities.
“Regionally, food insecurity was most prevalent in the South, intermediate in the Midwest and West, and least prevalent in the Northeast,” Nord, Andrews and Carlson reported.
But researchers found that “[w]hen households experience very low food security in the United States, the resulting instances of reduced food intake and disrupted eating patterns are usually occasional or episodic but are not usually chronic.”
Agency Needs
To help emergency food facilities in North Carolina, The State Farmers Market in Raleigh will host the annual “Week of Giving,” from Dec. 6-12, to benefit the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, which has collected food daily for food pantries since 1991, according to the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
Shoppers and other donors can leave whatever nonperishable food items or monetary donations they’d like under the farmers market’s “Giving Tree” in the Market Shoppes area to aid pantries in Wake, Durham, Orange, Chatham, Johnston, Edgecombe and Nash counties, the NCDACS reports.
The Salvation Army in Suffolk, Va., needs food for the upcoming holidays and bell ringers since it is serving more people this year, said Maj. Irene Clatterbuck, corps officer.
“We can always use canned foods and any donations,” Clatterbuck said. “Right now, we’re low on food – turkeys and canned foods.”
The Suffolk Salvation Army also picks up fruits and vegetables from a local grocery store every day. These produce items are distributed daily at the Suffolk Salvation Army Bank Street location.
Families in need do not have to fill out an application for the fresh fruits and vegetables since Clatterbuck said the office tries to distribute these items as quickly as possible. Families, she said, sign up, noting how large their family is, and take what they need, though the organization limits the amount of certain items that can be taken at times.
“We always feel the more we take in and give, the more the Lord gives us,” Clatterbuck said.
In Western Tidewater, the Franklin Cooperative Ministries, too, needs food – nonperishables – as well as winter clothing and money. The organization also accepts items such as tea, coffee, juices, canned meat, cereal, canned and dried beams, peanut butter, jelly, muffin and bread mixes, saltine crackers, ready-to-eat puddings and Jell-Os, small bottles of water or juices, canned fruits and vegetables and Pop Tarts. What the cooperative doesn’t want, though, are large cans and containers of food items, and it cannot accept out of date items.
Along with food, the Franklin Cooperative Ministries reports that families also need toilet paper, personal hygiene products, diapers for babies and adults and dishwashing and laundry detergents.
Throughout the year, the Foodbank of the Virginia Peninsula accepts canned foods, easy-to-prepare meals such potted meat, hardy soups, high protein items, peanut butter and baby food, Whitehead said.
The Foodbank, which has distributed more produce than any other state foodbank, also accepts fresh fruits and vegetables of all kinds throughout the year for the children’s programs, she said.
To make a donation to foodbanks and other emergency food programs, contact the following:
Foodbank of the Virginia Peninsula
9912 Hosier St.
Newport News, Virginia 23601
(757) 596-7188
http://www.charityadvantage.com/foodbank/MakingADifference.asp
Suffolk Salvation Army
400 Bank Street
Suffolk, Virginia 23434
(757) 539-5201
http://www.salvationarmyusa.org/usn/www_usn_2.nsf
Franklin Cooperative Ministries
(757) 516-6322
Inter-Faith Food Shuttle
Raleigh, North Carolina 27603
http://www.foodshuttle.org/
Top Food Insecure States in 2008
1
MS
17.4 percent
2
TX
16.4 percent
3
AR
15.9 percent
4
GA
14.2 percent
5
NM
14.1 percent
6
OK
14 percent
7
MO
14 percent
8
KS
13.8 percent
9
ME
13.7 percent
10
NC
13.7 percent
Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture
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