More Americans call out in hunger - But food pantries are feeling pinched

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. -- Bob Randels, Rose Miller and Teresa Osborne spend most of their waking hours rescuing food.

They're not Dumpster divers, but they are relentless in their pursuit of pizzas that weren't picked up, sub-shop bread that wasn't used and small bags of shrimp from the local Red Lobster that didn't get tossed into a pasta Alfredo.

Their efforts are part of a much larger, organized daily hustle to meet the increasing need--especially in Midwestern states--to feed the hungry.

"We're trying to keep pace, as much as we can," said Randels, executive director of the Food Bank of South Central Michigan, which last year served 92,000 people, up from 62,000 in 2001.

"Only a handful of people out there believe that we are the long-term answer to the hunger problem," Randels said.

But near the end of every month, when food stamps are gone, pantries are the most visible and accessible answer for many of the estimated 35 million Americans the U.S. Department of Agriculture classifies as "food insecure."

A recent USDA report omitted the word "hunger" in its assessment of hunger in America. In job-bleeding Michigan, which has the highest unemployment rate in the nation--6.9 percent in October--the agency's semantic sleight of hand is likened to politicians who call tax increases revenue enhancers.

"That's a bunch of malarkey," said Archie MacGregor, coordinator of a small basement food pantry in Battle Creek.

MacGregor is always complaining about the lack of peanut butter. Meat is scarce, he said. And applesauce is sometimes used as a substitute for vegetables in the food bags his pantry hands out to 1,000 to 1,200 people every month.

One of them was Jaime Romero, 28, a waitress and mother of three who walked out of the pantry Tuesday with several bags of food, including baby supplies for her 2-year-old. Romero is jobless. She and her husband moved out of their rented home because it was infested with mice and are living in a motel.

"I only came because I absolutely needed it and I just lost my job," Romero said. "I don't believe in coming every month, because other people need it more."

Thanksgiving, like Christmas, tends to produce an outpouring of private and corporate donations as people, for one reason or another, become more mindful of the needy. On Tuesday, for instance, 320 skids of cereal were dropped off--without advance notice--in the parking lot at Randels' Battle Creek warehouse. That's enough cereal to fill 14 semitrailer trucks.

For most of the remainder of the year, though, the patchwork collection of pantries, warehouses and faith-based groups scramble to try to fill the holes. Recent developments, combined with a spotty economy, have increased the challenge.

U.S. food assistance plunges

Federal food assistance, in the form of commodities like milk products and canned goods, is down about 55 percent since 2001. The Battle Creek food bank, which serves an eight-county region in southern Michigan, received 629,000 pounds of food from the USDA last year, 15 percent less than the previous year, said Miller, who is director of agency relations for the food bank.

Pantries in some states, including Michigan and Ohio, report that some food manufacturers are selling goods to secondary sellers such as Dollar General or Big Lots rather than donating to pantries. And some supermarkets, in cost-cutting moves, are eliminating so-called reclamation centers, which had served as distribution centers for goods that had previously gone to pantries.

These developments coincide with a steady increase in demand for food, some of which can be seen in a spike in federal food stamp use since 2000. In Ohio and Michigan, which have lost hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs since the late 1990s, food stamp use is up 65 percent and 74 percent, respectively, from 2000 to 2005, according to the USDA.

A report last week from the University of Michigan forecast two more years of job losses in the state--the longest stretch of employment losses since the Great Depression. Most of that is due to restructuring in the domestic auto industry.

'Cereal City' short on meat, fish

In Battle Creek, the self-described "Cereal City," food bank officials have established close working relationships with Kellogg Company and Kraft Foods' Post Division, which has helped keep a 30,000-square-foot warehouse well-stocked--with cereal. The challenge is to obtain meat, tuna fish, peanut butter and household items. Officials supplement corporate and private donations with leftover food from restaurants, including Pizza Hut, Olive Garden, Red Lobster and local submarine sandwich shops.

"This is what we call 'deep diving,'" said Osborne, who leads the food bank's donor and community relations program.

In Kalamazoo, about 20 miles to the west, the patch quilt of services resembles those in Battle Creek. At Loaves & Fishes, which acts as a food distributor and referral agency for the hungry, executive director Anne Lipsey said demand is increasing at a 10 percent to 15 percent annual clip. About 30 percent of Kalamazoo's population live below the federal poverty line.

"We're seeing more adult-only households, a complex and multigenerational coming together of people, for economic reasons," she said. "It's people living on one person's income, grandma's Social Security and disability income for Uncle Fred."

Every Monday through Friday, Lipsey's office staffs a phone bank between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. People call to find out where they can get food that day. On Tuesday, it shut down at 2 p.m. because the pantries couldn't handle the demand.