Food pantries need extra help for holidays this year

By Cate Cardinale and Jason Foster - The Herald

The need for donations at local food pantries is particularly great this holiday season, but most charities say the amount of food coming in has failed to keep pace.

Double-digit unemployment kept the charities busy with clients all year, meaning the normal drop-off in demand for food that's usually seen during the summer didn't happen. And that's made it especially hard to keep shelves stocked.

“The food is going out as fast as it is coming in,” said Susan Dean, director of Pilgrims' Inn, which last year gave out 3,000 food orders to 7,000 people. “I would guesstimate that this year's requests for food will have gone up about 50 to 60 percent.”

In a normal year, Pilgrims' Inn starts seeing a big increase in food donations around Nov. 1, she said. This year, items didn't start coming in until last week, Dean said.

“We haven't received any Thanksgiving type food yet, like turkeys and stuffing,” she said earlier this week.

It's a similar story at the Rev. Ronal King's Feed the Hungry ministry. Donations are down, but the number of those looking for help continues to rise. King said a new subset of needy people has cropped up, thanks to the recession and subsequent unemployment — those who have always had a steady job but are now jobless after a layoff.

York County's unemployment rate was at 15.7 percent in October, the latest numbers available, more than double the rate in October 2008.

“When people who have had a house, had finances … find themselves without a job, they don't know what to do,” King said.

Feed the Hungry also is in need of Thanksgiving-specific donations, King said.

“We need all the turkeys we can get,” he said.

As in past years, the charity will donate all the turkeys it receives to needy families on Thanksgiving Day.

At The Salvation Army in Rock Hill, which operates a food pantry year-round, leaders hope a canned food drive going on now will boost donations for the holidays and help restock the thinning shelves.

Lt. Kenny Iglehart said donations are on pace with previous years. But that pace doesn't usually match the true need, even in a good year, he said. That means this year takes on even greater urgency.

“We are going to do what we can to make sure no one goes hungry this holiday season,” he said.

While many food banks are dealing with donation shortages, it's a much different story at the Fort Mill Care Center, which received 29,000 pounds of food in October.

“We have more food in this building than we know what to do with. It's a fantastic problem,” said Jan Arnold, pantry chairwoman.

The surge in donations came after the Fort Mill Times reported the pantry was running out of food.

“We're just totally opposite everybody else,” Arnold said. “People have just been coming in droves (to donate).”

But the demand for food in Fort Mill continues to rise, she said, as new clients visit the Care Center every day.

Lately, the center has been giving out about 1,500 pounds of food per day, on average. Arnold expects the donations to continue through the holidays.

“I think we've got our head above water,” she said.

Following is a list of places to donate food in York and Chester counties:

Feed the Hungry Ministry: P.O. Box 307, Rock Hill, 803-417-3881

Chester County Community Food Pantry: 135 Wylie St., Chester, 803-377-8175

Turning Point: 112 Gadsden St., Chester, 803-581-0219

Pilgrims' Inn: 236 W. Main St., Rock Hill, 803-327-4227

Hope Inc.: 404 E. Main St., Rock Hill, 803-328-8000