Record Numbers Flock to Food Banks

Nov. 27, 2008— -- There is so much food available in America, so much "plenty" to go around -- unless you can't pay for it.

And with more and more people unable to make ends meet, food banks like Manna Foods Center in Rockville, Md., have never been so busy. The Montgomery County food pantry provides local families with nutritious staples for the dinner table. Last month alone, they serviced 3,124 families, up 55 percent from the 2,100 families serviced in October 2007.

"Manna has been around for 25 years and there have been recessions and bad economic downturns, but nothing like this," Manna Food Center executive director Amy Gabala said.

A Department of Agriculture report recently found that 36 million people lived in households it calls "food insecure," where not all family members have access to food, in 2007; 12 million of those were children. But experts say that these numbers do not reflect the worsening economic conditions in 2008.

"By the time the numbers come out for this year, I can only imagine how much higher the numbers will be," said George Braley, senior vice president of Feeding America, which represents 206 food banks across the nation.

This year, unemployment has hit a 14-year high and a growing number of Americans are struggling to make ends meet.

"A year ago, or six months ago, they were able to make their rent or their mortgage payment. They were able to put food on the table. They could put gas in their car," Gabala said. "They either lost some hours at work, prices went up, and boom."

Angela Beckwith, who worked for a professional dog groomer until it went out of business, now works as an overnight stocker at Target. She's making less than half of what she was this time last year.

"I'm feeding a family of eight with two boxes of food and one turkey," she said.

In the holiday spirit, there's a public gesture of generosity to those who can't pay: the free Thanksgiving dinner. In Oakland, Calif., they ran out of turkey and started serving chicken.

At Manna Food Center, Jerry Bozic was thankful for his holiday turkey. He saw his work as a kitchen renovator hit a lull because of the economy and was hit hard with his wife's hospital bills.

"They gave us a turkey and ... canned goods and stuff," his wife, Barbara, said. "We're not always lucky enough to get dog food, but we were this time."