A food line grows, pantry shelves go empty

Posted by adn_jomalley

Posted: August 26, 2009 - 8:58 pm

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Monthly take-home: Those who come for help to the Salvation Army food pantry once a month can go home with the items above, including rice, chips, bagels, ramen noodles and macaroni and cheese.

A baggie of rice. A can of peas. Two granola bars. A box of macaroni. A can of tuna. Four-day-old bagels. Three small bags of Doritos. Two servings of coffee. A can of salmon. One package of ramen noodles.

That's what you get on Thursdays at the Salvation Army food pantry between A and C streets near West 20th Avenue. You can show up there once a month.

When I visited last Thursday, traffic was steady. Kathy Lytle, the case manager, shuffled across the concrete floor, assembling shopping bags of food as fast as they were going out. A grocery store donation of baked goods and ripe fruit meant there was a little extra that day. Lytle could offer small choices to people who wouldn't be there if they had a choice.

"Angel food cake or pecan pie?" she called across the counter.

"Pie!" answered a father, a refugee from Africa with seven children at home.

Last year, the staff had to squeeze boxes of cereal on top of cases of canned beans. Now the shelves have wide empty spaces. And people keep coming through the door. Lytle has been seeing families who used to come in a few years ago and then stopped. They got on their feet, but now things are hard again. They tell her everything seems to cost more. Or medical bills pushed them into debt. Or someone got laid off. It seems more and more single people and seniors live on fixed incomes. Last year, 6,541 people showed up. The year before, that number was about 500 fewer.

Earlier, when I'd called the Food Bank and talked with Marleah LaBelle, the director of communications, she'd said the country's sour economic state is rippling through the local economy, hitting food pantries in two ways. People who might donate are tightening up their own budgets. Individual food donations are down across the board. And more people, teetering on the edge financially, are showing up. For every 10 people who came to pantries last year, there are 12 or 13 this year, depending on the part of the state.

I thought about another food pick-up location, at the Nazarene church on E Street across from Chugach Optional Elementary, where people line up early. I drive by every Tuesday. Lately I'd noticed the line getting longer, winding down the stairs and onto the sidewalk.

At the Salvation Army pantry, I watched customers file through for a while. Every person needs an ID and a piece of mail to prove his or her address. One woman unfolded a worn postcard from Hawaii. Another brought a student loan bill she can't pay. Once their Wal-Mart plastic bags were filled with pantry food, they sorted through the "free" shelf, sifting through day-old loaves of bread and overripe tomatoes.

Jewel Walker and his wife, Aurea, both seniors, were in the lobby. Jewel was tall and jolly, wearing a pair of denim overalls. The couple gets a food box each week from several different pantries in town, he told me. He's retired from a police department job. Aurea, who spent many years working in Puerto Rico, has very little retirement. He is 71. She is 66.

"We have a fixed budget," Jewel explained. Between their rent, which went up $50 this year, and their prescription co-payments, which also went up, there was no way to make it through the month without the boxes.

Jewel Walker, 71, and his wife, Aurea, 66

As Lytle and I passed through the lobby on my way out, a tiny little girl ran up to us. She was dressed all in pink and looked about 3 or 4. She wrapped her arms around Lytle's legs and chirped a word a couple times. I couldn't make out what she was saying.

"It means ramen noodles," the girl's mother explained. "She wants noodles."

I asked Lytle what types of food donations the pantry needs. She suggested macaroni and cheese, canned goods, especially fruit and vegetables, and ramen noodles.

As I left, I thought about all the mornings I'd driven by the food pantry. I'd seen the line out the window, but I'd been wrapped up in my own thoughts, listening to the radio, drinking my $3 espresso.

Back at my desk, I called Costco to see what ramen costs. Enough for 48 food pantry bags came to $8.49. I decided I'd stop in after work. I wanted that little girl to get her noodles.

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