High prices put squeeze on food aid
Volunteer Bill Bennett, a parishioner of St. Margaret Mary Parish in Winter Park, packs bags of food to be distributed to clients of Catholic Charities of Central Florida’s Semoran Food Pantry. The Orlando food pantry is one of many across Florida that face challenges dealing with the repercussions of rising food and fuel prices. Florida’s real estate tax and property insurance rates, coupled with runaway housing costs of the mid 2000’s were difficult pills to swallow. Now, with skyrocketing food and fuel prices, many people – neighbors and friends - are beginning to truly suffer. When the Florida Catholic’s bureau editors and writers were preparing their articles for this series, they found they didn’t need to look far to find real people hurting and reeling from the effects of an upside down economy. Here are their stories: One woman, two kids, no job, Retirement means raising grandchildren, rising prices She’s back on her feet with help from pantry Struggling families learn how to live on less High prices turns tables on generous family Despite high price of gas, monthly food caravan goes on 07.16.08ORLANDO | Guadalupe Social Services in Immokalee can’t afford to let high food prices affect its work, said director Ninfa Drago. Not when the need she sees in her community is so great. “They come with their hope and we are their hope,” said Drago of the farmworker families coming to her because they cannot afford to feed themselves. “We don’t want to say, ‘I don’t have that to provide to you.’” That’s a common sentiment among Catholics who work with the hungry across Florida this summer, as food and gasoline prices increase. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the price of food across the globe is rising at the fastest rate in 15 years. Floridians have started to feel the effects of the global squeeze and a possible recession at home. Rising grocery and gas costs are putting the pinch on wallets already strapped by low pay and a high cost of living. Poor families, elderly people on fixed incomes, the homeless and the underemployed are relying even more on the state’s network of central food banks, and local food pantries and soup kitchens — and they’re being joined this time by middle-class families who have never before had to seek outside help. At the same time, rising costs and a growing clientele provide a challenge for Florida’s network of food banks and pantries and soup kitchens. Individual donations of nonperishable food are slackening, and with need picking up, it’s causing organizations to dig deeper into their pockets to keep up with the status quo. “Our shelves were usually full of food, always. And some of the shelves are empty now. We are trying to see what we can do. We are trying to think how we can get more donations, and where we can get some funds to buy more food. We don’t have the answers yet,” said Carmen Hernandez, director of the Catholic Charities of Central Florida emergency assistance food pantry, which experienced a 25 percent rise in use this year. Basics are getting expensive
KAREN OSBORNE | FC Many central food banks are supplied by a combination of sources, which include private donations, grants, donations of mislabeled and surplus product by corporations, and U.S. government programs and surplus distribution. They, like the food pantries they supply, often have to work with what they are given and what they can get. To cover costs, some food banks charge pantries around 18 cents per pound of food or less; an equitable price, Hernandez said, but a price nonetheless for charities already working on low budgets. Hernandez also has noted the food banks she deals with have “a limited” selection compared to more prosperous years. “Certain items are very expensive and we are taking them out, like cereal. Cereal is very important for families, so we are trying to see only families with children to get that. Peanut butter is getting very expensive. The basics, like rice, macaroni and cheese,” she said. “We are looking how we can serve the people, but keep an eye on the foods,” she said. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the grains that make cereal command average prices of 50 percent more across the country than they did in 2006. Dan Dunn is executive director of All Faiths Food Bank in Sarasota, which supplies 297,000 meals a month, some through Catholic Charities agencies in Sarasota, Hardee and DeSoto counties. Dunn, a parishioner of Epiphany Cathedral in Venice, said his organization is preparing to find new ways to work through at least 18 more months of a recession in which “we won’t be able to slow down distribution at all,” he said. Nativity Food Bank, a ministry of Nativity Parish in Brandon, works on a slightly different model, according to director Pat LeJeune. “We’re giving out 10,000 pounds of food a week,” the majority of which comes from supermarket reclamation. Fifty-six local organizations, some Catholic, receive food for free from the parish’s ministry. “When we need it, we do a food drive from our parish. … I don’t think there is an answer. You just have to do what you can do,” said LeJeune. Grant money is also getting harder to come by, she said. “I haven’t gotten large grants. When the economy goes south, grant money goes south, too. It’s a big vicious circle.” Far fewer donationsLike many parish-run programs, most of the donations to the Holy Name of Jesus food pantry in Palm Beach come through private donors. “We are getting more people. We registered 35 new people this week; that’s not unusual. I have six people working the registration table most every week. There’s a lot more of the Haitian population coming in, so I have to get my welcome letter written in Creole,” said Ed Burroughs, pantry director. The major problem in the parish’s coverage area stems from the high cost of food paired with the area unemployment rate, Burroughs said. “I had a woman in today (saying), ‘I lost my job, I don’t have anything, I need some food.’ A lot of people are losing their jobs, and a lot of people don’t realize it,” he said. Many pantries rely on the generosity of community members, ordinary people whose concern for their own budgets has prompted them to cut back on extra spending for items to donate. Whatever the cause, there are far fewer individual food deliveries left on the doorsteps of Hernandez’s pantry and the pantry run by the St. Vincent de Paul Society at St. Andrew Church in Orlando. “We are getting far less food items donated than we previously received,” said Deacon Tommy Tate of the St. Vincent de Paul Society at St. Andrew. “Consequently, we are having to go to the food bank, and even though we don’t pay market price” it’s still a hardship, he noted. The directors are optimistic, but all of the organizations are planning for a future where the stress on the system is a little more evident and may be harder to combat. Like Dunn, Hernandez is preparing for the long haul. “When the president talks and says, ‘The situation is good, it’s going to get better,’ I’m sorry. It’s not getting better and the situation is very, very difficult,” she said.
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