The fact that the Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina recently ran out of food for the first time in its 28-year-history is one more shock that the recession has dealt. But this is one blow that shouldn’t leave anyone feeling powerless. Respond by donating food or money to Second Harvest.
The food bank’s misfortune was heralded by increasingly bleak figures. Each of the 18 counties that the food bank serves has more than 10 percent unemployment. In May, news broke that all 14 counties in the Triad and Northwest North Carolina had at least a double-digit increase in individuals receiving food and nutrition assistance from December 2007 through April 2009. In Forsyth County, the number of households receiving food assistance increased by about 25 percent.
More and more people, many for the first time, are turning for help to the agencies to which Second Harvest supplies food. “People are just flat running out of money,” said Tommy Cole, the director of Sunnyside Ministry of the Moravian Church.
The recent bare shelves at the food bank were a simple case of demand exceeding supply, the executive director of Second Harvest, Clyde Fitzgerald, told the Winston-Salem Journal’s Mary Giunca.
And the problem isn’t going away, even though donations to the food bank are up 15 percent, the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust just gave it $150,000 to use in Forsyth County, and it will get $2.4 million worth of food this year both through economic stimulus money and a federal farm bill passed last year. Fitzgerald said that there could be a 6-million-pound shortage of food in Second Harvest’s 18-county service area unless it develops new sources of supply.
Second Harvest’s partner agencies have served 250,000 people already this year, compared with 150,000 in all of last year. “This is not the kind of thing were we say, ‘Gee, this is Tuesday, and the crisis is over,’” Fitzgerald said.
Complicating matters are the legislature’s delay in agreeing on a budget, which has held up financial allocations to food banks, and the traditional summer drop-off in food drives.
Community support for Second Harvest is crucial. Donations have flowed in since the Winston-Salem Journal published an article recently about the food bank’s crunch.
But more help is needed.
“People respond when they believe a real problem exists,” Fitzgerald said.
A real problem definitely exists, and it will only grow before the recession recedes.
Most of us are feeling the downturn in one way or another, but many of us can spare some food or money for Second Harvest.
The food bank has never needed help more.
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