SYRACUSE -- New statistics out from The U.S. Department of Agriculture says nearly 15 percent of American households are going hungry.
Last year, 49 million people were unable to consistently get enough food. 17 million of them were children. Local charities say they’re also seeing some troubling patterns here in Central New York.
The food pantry at Assumption Church on Syracuse’s north side is always busy around lunch time but lately the volunteers have been seeing a lot of new faces. Whether it’s someone looking for a bag lunch or a family in need of food essentials, several food pantries said the numbers of people they serve have gone up at least 10 to 20 percent.
"The last couple of months has been a big jump,” said Michele Jordan from the Interreligious Food Consortium. “Where a pantry may serve 80 families a month, all of a sudden they are seeing a surge of 120 families a month."
Food Pantries are just one indicator of the growing problem. 5,000 more families in Onondaga County are receiving food stamps than a year ago. That’s a staggering increase of 25 percent.
The Executive Director of the local Rescue Mission says he’s shocked by the increases he has seen over the past two years. "If you would have told me at the start of 2008, you're going to serve ten thousand more meals, I wouldn't have guessed that,” said Chasz Parker. “I was hoping things would at least stabilize, I would always hope we would see things stabilize and move in the right direction."
If the Rescue Mission staff thought that 10,000 more meals in 2008 was a lot, 2009 has already topped that number by 8,000 more meals. There's also still a month and a half of serving meals still to come in 2009.
The River of Life Church in Syracuse says it used to give Thanksgiving turkeys to 50 needy families a year. Over the past few years they kept increasing the number and last year they were able to distribute 700 free turkeys. This year they managed to buy 1,000 turkeys to give away.
"We turned people away last year and the year before and we'll probably turn people away this year but at least we know we helped somebody,” said Pastor Danny Thornton.
Several pantries said donations have slowed with the economy and they just hope they can keep up with the growing need for food locally.
