Food banks nationwide report more 1st timers

[WI_DEM]

If you are able to please consider donating (either monetarily or by your time) at a pantry:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h_aEPLrVFXjAWvD5ioPv-xA6eJAwD9C7TU582

CHICAGO — Prentice Jones worked construction jobs around Chicago for most of his 60 years and is quick to boast of a foreman job he once held at a revamped city college and 23 years at a steel company.

But these days, work has been so scarce that the man with a penchant for cowboy hats has been forced to move in with his mother and do something this week he never expected — visit a food pantry.

"There's no work now," Jones said while waiting in line at St. Columbanus Parish for a frozen turkey and bags of apples, bread and potatoes. "I pray it's temporary."

A surge in first time visitors has contributed to the greatest demand in years at food banks nationwide, according to Feeding America, a Chicago-based national food bank association. Many of the first timers were middle class but lost jobs or had their wages cut.

"They were doing pretty well," said Ross Fraser of Feeding America. "They've completely had the rug pulled out from under them."

Federal agencies and national organizations have just started tracking first timers. But anecdotal evidence and statistics from individual pantries is clear: More and more new faces are appearing among the approximately 25 million Americans who rely on food pantries each year.

St. Columbanus Pantry, which serves about 500 people a week on Chicago's South Side, has had up to 50 new people sign up each week since February.

The Friendly Center in Orange, Calif., serves 80 families a day, with about 20 new people trying to qualify each day, far more than last year.

And at the Community Kitchen and Food Pantry of West Harlem, N.Y., about 250 of the 1,000 people who show up each day — up from 750 this time last year — are newcomers.

"The line has grown so long that when you walk outside, it's overwhelming," said Jesse Taylor, senior director at the pantry. "A lot of people are coming out in suits, they're carrying brief cases."

[SpiralHawk]

1. The putrid fruit of republiconomics

"Shock & Awe, baby. Smirk."

- Republicon Grifters who handed the Dems a Broken Economy at the start of the year