Baggywrinkle
11-24-2008, 06:32 PM
DILLARD — For the past 20 years, Winston resident Cindy Griggs has made a monthly trip to the Dillard-Winston Food Pantry to pick up a food box.
Feeding four people on one income, she said, is difficult. The food boxes bulk up the cupboards, even if it’s only for one week out of the month.
Usually, the items in the box go quickly, but sometimes she’s able to make a stew or soup that lasts a couple of days.
Griggs took time off work to go to the food pantry on a recent Wednesday, one of the food bank’s two pick-up days. While waiting in line with a dozen other people outside the United Methodist Church, which houses the pantry, she explained that her two kids can’t find work and her partner is disabled. And, she said, her employer is cutting hours.
Griggs said she notices new faces at the pantry each month. And she’s noticed the food boxes are lighter.
“It used to be 10 minutes in and out. Now the whole process can take up to an hour,” said Griggs. “So many new people come here now.”
Coordinator Bernice McClellan said there has been a 23 percent increase in need this year, with an average of 30 new people each month. Since 1988 McClellan has filled the boxes with tuna, macaroni and cheese, beans and other staples that she and volunteers pick up from UCAN Food Shares monthly. They plan for about 40 people to show up on Mondays and Wednesdays.
McClellan has organized more fundraisers to compensate for the portion of food they don’t receive from UCAN, but there hasn’t been a time in her 20 years of work at the pantry when they have considered shutting the doors. The volunteers find other ways to manage the increase in need, such as rationing portions.
“I think the only way to survive is to cut down the amount of food in food boxes,” she said.
McClellan and Griggs both attribute the upswing of people at the pantry to layoffs and an increase in food costs.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service Web site, the consumer price index — an index of the cost of all goods and services to a consumer, also sometimes referred to as the cost-of-living index — has been rising at an accelerated rate in 2007 and 2008. The trend is expected to contin
ue into the first half of 2009. The Web site lists higher commodity and energy costs as the culprits for higher retail prices.
Adding fuel to the fire, Oregon’s unemployment rate has reached its highest level in four years at 7.3 percent. Food banks and community kitchens across the state are seeing the brunt of it.
http://www.nrtoday.com/article/20081123/NEWS/811219889/1063/NEWS&ParentProfile=1055&title=More%20turn%20to%20food%20banks
Feeding four people on one income, she said, is difficult. The food boxes bulk up the cupboards, even if it’s only for one week out of the month.
Usually, the items in the box go quickly, but sometimes she’s able to make a stew or soup that lasts a couple of days.
Griggs took time off work to go to the food pantry on a recent Wednesday, one of the food bank’s two pick-up days. While waiting in line with a dozen other people outside the United Methodist Church, which houses the pantry, she explained that her two kids can’t find work and her partner is disabled. And, she said, her employer is cutting hours.
Griggs said she notices new faces at the pantry each month. And she’s noticed the food boxes are lighter.
“It used to be 10 minutes in and out. Now the whole process can take up to an hour,” said Griggs. “So many new people come here now.”
Coordinator Bernice McClellan said there has been a 23 percent increase in need this year, with an average of 30 new people each month. Since 1988 McClellan has filled the boxes with tuna, macaroni and cheese, beans and other staples that she and volunteers pick up from UCAN Food Shares monthly. They plan for about 40 people to show up on Mondays and Wednesdays.
McClellan has organized more fundraisers to compensate for the portion of food they don’t receive from UCAN, but there hasn’t been a time in her 20 years of work at the pantry when they have considered shutting the doors. The volunteers find other ways to manage the increase in need, such as rationing portions.
“I think the only way to survive is to cut down the amount of food in food boxes,” she said.
McClellan and Griggs both attribute the upswing of people at the pantry to layoffs and an increase in food costs.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service Web site, the consumer price index — an index of the cost of all goods and services to a consumer, also sometimes referred to as the cost-of-living index — has been rising at an accelerated rate in 2007 and 2008. The trend is expected to contin
ue into the first half of 2009. The Web site lists higher commodity and energy costs as the culprits for higher retail prices.
Adding fuel to the fire, Oregon’s unemployment rate has reached its highest level in four years at 7.3 percent. Food banks and community kitchens across the state are seeing the brunt of it.
http://www.nrtoday.com/article/20081123/NEWS/811219889/1063/NEWS&ParentProfile=1055&title=More%20turn%20to%20food%20banks