Looming food bank woes call for another inspired community effort
Tuesday, July 8, 2008 12:31 AM PDT
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E-mail this articleJuly 8 Daily News editorial
High food and fuel prices and a slowing economy are threatening to brew up a perfect storm for area food banks this summer. That was the message some clearly worried food bank officials had for U.S. Rep. Brian Baird early last week, when he toured local food distribution centers.
Representatives from the Lower Columbia Community Action Program and area food banks told the Washington Democrat that food and cash donations have declined in recent months, according to Daily News reporter Cheryll A. Borgaard. We saw troubling evidence of this decline in May, when contributions to the 15th annual National Association of Letter Carriers local food drive fell almost 25 percent short of contributions to the previous year’s drive.
At the same time food and cash donations have declined, the jobless rate has risen. There’s been no spike in demand for food assistance yet. Help Warehouse Manager Lois Shelton said local demand has risen only 3 percent this summer. Shelton, however, suggested that this period represents a calm before the storm. “We’re going to have a long, long summer for lack of food,” she told Baird. “We’ve had a lot of layoffs,” she added, “but people don’t come to the programs right away, so we haven’t seen those effects yet, but we know it’s inevitable.”
When the anticipated surge in demand comes, Shelton expects that many of the individuals requesting help will have pretty much exhausted their resources. She explained that the newly unemployed often will use up most of their savings and other assets before showing up at a food bank, which makes it even harder for them make ends meet.
Making sure adequate food assistance is available for those families that come knocking at food banks in coming weeks and months will be a challenge, obviously. But people in this community have responded well when faced with similar challenges in years past. More than a dozen years ago, for example, a weak economy left a large number of area families struggling to put food on the table. The soaring demand for emergency food cleared the shelves of many local food banks. The community quickly responded with donations and food drives, providing the needed assistance.
Indeed, we’ve already witnessed a response to news of an impending food emergency this summer. Shortly after Baird’s visit focused attention on the concern of food bank officials, Bill Ammons announced plans for a drive to collect 100,000 pounds of food, diapers and toiletry items. The Kelso barber currently is accepting nonperishable items at his shop on South Pacific Avenue. Cash donations can be made to the drive, called “Helping Our Neighbors,” at the Grocery Outlet on Ocean Beach Highway in Longview. Ammons also is organizing a food drop-off and community gathering Aug. 2 at the new Fibre Credit Union building on Commerce Avenue in Longview. Ammons’ timely effort should serve to rally the community to meet this latest challenge.
mowland wrote on Jul 8, 2008 9:46 AM:
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