We agree. That is, if the patient can afford it.

Regarding nutrition, eating regularly is still the standard of care.
SEE BELOW!

Joel

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Posted on Sun, Sep. 26, 2004

In the land of plenty, the hungry are growing

Food banks are witnessing a surge in the working poor who seek help.

By Rita Giordano

Inquirer Staff Writer

They toil, but for wages that don't stretch across the rough edges of
their lives. For many, asking for help comes hard. Sometimes their
children wait in the car, fearing they will be seen. But each month,
the needy queue up. And the line only seems to grow.

Throughout the area, in suburbs and in cities, food pantries and
agencies that distribute food say they have seen huge growth in the
number of working families forced to seek their aid.

"The working poor are the people seeking the most help from the food
pantries," said Cheryl Maitlen, development director of the Food Bank
of South Jersey.

The Greater Philadelphia Food Bank, which provides food to programs in
the city and its Pennsylvania suburbs, is witnessing the same.

"It's certainly the fastest-growing group we're seeing," director Joan
Mintz Ulmer said. "Our largest increase has been working families with
children."

The plight of these local families mirrors a disturbing trend
nationally: Hunger in the United States, including among those who
work, is on the rise.

America's Second Harvest, a leading supplier of surplus food, is
hearing from its members that many people are seeking help for the
first time, spokeswoman Sue Hofer said.

"We are seeing people who are coming in and saying, 'Last year, I gave
money at the Christmas drive at my church. This year, I can't believe
I'm here.' Last year's donors are this year's clients," Hofer said.

Last year, America's Second Harvest distributed nearly 1.8 billion
pounds of food and other grocery products, compared with 0.86 billion
pounds just six years before. Every four years, the Chicago-based
organization surveys food-pantry clients nationally. In 2001, the year
of the last survey, nearly 40 percent were from working households -
double from four years before.

And since 2001, the economy has gotten worse, Hofer said.

"What we've seen is the rate of poverty go up, the rate of food
insecurity" - inadequate access to food - "go up, and the average
earning of American families is going down," Hofer said. "Just in the
last couple of months, we've seen wages have been stagnant and
inflation has begun to go up."

This summer served up what many economists said were lackluster
job-creation figures nationally.

Even before that, the forecast was not reassuring. Of the 20
occupations projected by the U.S. Department of Labor to grow the most
in the next several years, 15 are classified as low-income.

Anita Patton, 44, of Burlington Township, has one of those jobs.
Working as an overnight clerk in a convenience store, she makes $8 an
hour to support herself and her 12-year-old twins. She had been making
a bit more at a fast-food place and using the chain's courtesy coupons
to help feed her family. But a manager heard about it and disapproved.
She was let go.

Recently, Patton and the children moved into the living room of her
parents and younger brother's two-bedroom apartment. She hopes it will
ease their struggles. Before that, they lived in motels and depended
on help from Catholic Charities' food pantry in Delanco.

"The hardest part is coming up with meat. We enjoy eating meat loaf
and spaghetti and meatballs. Unfortunately, most of the time it's
spaghetti without meatballs or meat," Patton said shortly before
moving out of the motel. "Breakfast is kind of rough because I have to
give my kids dry cereal." She said she could not afford milk.

She has gone hungry "quite a few times." Talking about her troubles is
hard, but Patton wants people to know what working people face.

"If it wasn't for the food pantries," she said, "a lot of people would
go hungry."

Joyce Boyah didn't know.

Boyah, 27, fled her native land, war-ravaged Liberia, when she was 13
with two of her sisters. They lived in Ivory Coast, then in a refugee
camp in Ghana, before she managed to come here in 2001.

Living in Wynnefield in West Philadelphia with her 5-year-old daughter
and working as a nursing assistant, she is grateful for help from the
food pantry at Light of Hope Christian Academy, a small school in
Southwest Philadelphia. Their food has enabled her to send money to
her mother in their homeland so she and Boyah's siblings can eat.

Accustomed to need herself, when she first went to the food pantry she
was astonished to see so much need here.

"I thought in America no one could be hungry," Boyah said. "They were
sending food. When we were in a refugee camp, they were even sending
water. I thought Americans were so rich, they'd never go to a food
pantry."

Locally, those who work on hunger's front lines know the needs all too
well. Area food banks have steadily increased the food they
distribute, and many pantries report seeing record numbers seeking
help. Some have added evening hours to accommodate people who work.

With high housing costs, expensive gasoline, and utilities to pay,
people face hard choices.

"Everything has gone up but the salaries," said Steveanna Wynn,
executive director of Philadelphia's SHARE, a program that distributes
surplus food and provides discounted groceries.

"We continue to get new food cupboards," Wynn said. "There are
churches in areas that never had a food pantry and all of a sudden
they are getting requests."

But that doesn't mean people seek help lightly, especially not those
who work.

"People are proud, and they are embarrassed to use our services," said
Patty Sobecki, food program manager for Chester County Cares.

Especially the children.

"We've had teens come in literally in hooded sweatshirts with the hood
up and sunglasses, hoping no one will recognize them," said Loretta
Stever of the Jerusalem Community Food Pantry in Schwenksville,
Montgomery County. "We have kids who refuse to come in. They wait out
in the car."

Many pantries give a three-day supply of canned and baked foods,
pasta, and some fresh food. That food is often stretched longer than
three days.

"We've lost count of how many times we've heard kids say, 'Mommy and
Daddy, can we go home and eat now?' " Stever said.

That question may be asked more than some might guess.

In its most recent study, the Department of Agriculture reported that
11.1 percent of the nation's households are food insecure - an
increase over recent years. According to the Food Research and Action
Center, in Washington, that means nearly 35 million people.

Pamela Reed-Loy, 42, and her family are among the faces behind those
numbers. Even though her husband, Archie, makes $18 an hour as a
mechanic, between his child-support payments, asthma-medication costs
for herself and the youngest of their three daughters, and the $1,500
a month they pay for a Maple Shade motel room because they can't come
up with the lump sum for an apartment, Reed-Loy regularly turns to two
food pantries.

"People can work, and they're still struggling," she said.

Carolyn Hicks, a churchgoing woman, worked 14 years for the same
child-care center in Norristown, where she lives. She was already
struggling to pay her share of $1,000 rent she splits with a daughter,
to buy medicine, and to pay bills while helping raise her
grandchildren. Food pantries such as the one run by the Patrician
Society in Norristown were a big help.

Then just about a week ago, she lost her job. At first she was in
shock.

"But today, nothing is a shock," Hicks, 58, said. "Nothing is forever
but God. You can never depend on a job."

So she is doing what she must. She has put in for unemployment and is
on the lookout for job leads. She is reading her Bible. And she has
been to food pantries. Twice.

"Thank God they're there," Hicks said. "Yes, I thank God."

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