Summer demand outstripping supply, says distributor for the needy

07:58 AM EDT on Wednesday, July 7, 2004

BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- More than 51,000 Rhode Islanders ask for help from a food pantry, shelter or soup kitchen every month.

But the demand for food is far outstripping the supply.

"We're running out of food," says Bernie Beaudreau, executive director of the Rhode Island Community Food Bank, which distributes food to 435 member agencies. "We have very little food right now -- pasta, rice, dried beans, canned food -- we need it all."

The Food Bank needs to bring in at least 400,000 pounds by the end of the summer to keep the state's 150 food pantries stocked.

The agency is launching its first summer food drive. It is calling on churches, businesses, community and civic groups to organize collections of canned goods to help fill the shelves of emergency food providers. Nonperishables items such as canned meats, stews, tuna, vegetables, beans, peanut butter, pasta, rice and cereals are most needed.

In the past year, the Food Bank has distributed a record 7.9 million pounds of food through its member agencies -- 1 million pounds more than the previous year, an increase of 15 percent.

One of the reasons for the shortage is that large supermarket chains have reduced the amount of food they donate to food banks. In addition, because the Food Bank is larger and more efficient, it has increased the number of people that it serves, Beaudreau says. The agency moved to a new warehouse on Niantic Avenue in Providence in late November.

Lorraine Burns, who runs the food pantry at St. Teresa's Church in Olneyville, has felt the pinch. In 2003, she served an average of 3,900 pounds of food to 300 families per month. This year, she is handing out 6,229 pounds of food to 335 families a month.

Since 90 percent of her supplies comes from the Food Bank, she begins to worry when the agency runs low.

Now that summer vacation is here, poor children no longer receive free or reduced-price meals at school, and Burns says she is seeing more and more hungry families at her pantry.

Many families, she says, are only one paycheck from disaster, like the Italian couple whose husband can no longer work due to an injury. Now, they have to choose between paying the mortgage and feeding their two children. Or the 83-year-old woman who cleans toilets to supplement her limited income.

And Burns will never forget the elderly man who came in and said, "I can't eat cat food any more."

St. Teresa's pantry gives each person enough food for five meals, usually a combination of rice, beans, pasta, tuna and canned goods. Although her pantry is supposed to feed people from the neighborhood, Burns doesn't ask questions.

"When poverty looks you in the eye," she says, "you need to act on it."

Erin Blakely lives on Allens Avenue in Cranston with her husband and five children, but she knows that St. Teresa's won't turn her away. Her husband works, but he doesn't make enough to cover the rent, which is $1,400 a month, and everything else.

"I'd rather pay the rent," she says, "I can always worry about food later."

Blakeley knows what it's like to be homeless. Two years ago, she lost everything in a fire. She has lived in a hotel and bunked with family. But nothing beats having a place of your own.

The Food Bank is working on long-term solutions. It has hired someone to procure regular donations from Rhode Island food companies and local farms. The Food Bank also hopes to create a buying cooperative by pooling donations from individual food pantries, which will enable the Food Bank to make bulk purchases for them at a lower price.

Anyone who wants to organize a local food drive should contact the Food Bank at 942-6325 or visit www.rifoodbank.org