Nov 19, 2009 9:05 pm US/Eastern
Growing Trend: Food Pantry Donors Become Clients
Recession Forcing Middle Class Families Into Soup Kitchens
ENGLEWOOD, N.J. (CBS) ―
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Families line up for help from a Chicago food pantry on Aug. 13, 2008.
CBS
The recession is forcing more middle class families to do something they never imagined – seeking help from food pantries.
"This has been an incredible hardship on everybody," food aid recipient Mary says.
Mary is a 35-year-old mother of four who, until recently, considered herself upper-middle class. She was making $90,000 a year in the health care industry, and then, like millions, she lost her job.
"It went from shopping in department stores and never thinking twice about making a purchase," Mary says, to getting her family's meals for free at an Englewood soup kitchen.
Patricia Espy has worked there for 22 years.
"I've never seen anything like this," Espy, director of the Center for Food Action, says. "This is a whole new game for us, in the sense that we're seeing more clients, but less donations."
The center is giving away more than 3,000 Thanksgiving dinners, but this year, many of them are going to families more accustomed to giving food than receiving it.
Mary is someone who used to donate to food drives, never thinking she might end up on the receiving end.
"When my kids said, 'there isn't anything I like to eat in the house,' I think that's when it hit me – 'it's time to get beyond what others might think of me and go ahead and get that help that we need,'" Mary says.
The number of families in need is growing. Across the country, 49 million people live in "food insecure" households. In New Jersey, that's 10 percent of all families; in New York and Connecticut, it's 11 percent of all families.
Mary says the arrival of Thanksgiving, and its traditionally overflowing meals, doesn't help.
"Holidays center around food, our homes center around the kitchen and food," Mary says. "When you don't have that, you lose that important part of your life and family."
"I envision that it's gonna get worse, that we're gonna see more people like Mary coming for services – not because they want to be here, but because there's no other option out there for them," Espy says.
It's generosity that's hard to swallow, but an alternative that would be worse.
If you want to donate, food centers say they can use canned or dry goods, but the most helpful of all are cash donations.
CBS 2's Josh Landis contributed to this report.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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