As Requests for Groceries Spike, Hunger Charity Scrambles to Cover Costs

Nearly all social-service groups have been under strain for the past five years because of the bad economy.

But charities that feed the poor and middle class say things are getting worse, not better.

Among them: SnowCap Community Charities, a food pantry in Portland, Ore., that served 20,000 people a year in 2007, just as the recession officially began. By 2008, the number had jumped to 56,127, about 4,000 people per month.

“We thought we were doing all we could with 4,000 people,” says Judith Alley, executive director.

But since 2009, the pantry has been serving more than 8,000 people a month. And then, in 2012, three years after the recession officially ended, the group, which has a $2.3-million budget, provided food to a record 128,000, more than 10,000 each month.

Foundations Bolster Aid

SnowCap managed to serve all those people in the early part of the downturn because of extra federal aid that went to its main supplier, the Oregon Food Bank, and then in recent years with an extra infusion of money foundations provided to the food bank. But the situation in 2013 and beyond looks sketchier.

In fiscal year 2009-2010, thanks to the federal economic stimulus law, the Oregon Food Bank received a total of $578,000, or $165,000 more than usual, from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Emergency Food and Shelter Program. By 2011, the Portland metropolitan area no longer qualified for the program’s aid, so the state board of nonprofit officials that oversees a special set-aside fund of the federal money allocated the three- county area $59,000.

In December 2011, the FEMA program decided again to award a grant to the food bank, but it took eight months to deliver the grants due to changes to the formula used to calculate need.

“That left many organizations struggling to figure out how to pay for food without knowing for sure if reimbursement was going to happen,” a 2012 Congressional Research Service report on the program states.

The Oregon Food Bank turned to foundations for help. The organization received $150,000 from the Collins Foundation and $500,000 from the Meyer Memorial Trust to purchase food. And, for the first time ever, the food bank’s board of directors approved using reserves to boost spending to purchase food from $2.1-million in 2011 to $4.6-million in 2012.

Ms. Alley at SnowCap was also taking unprecedented steps. Eligible clients had always been allowed to come to the organization once a month for their food. In 2012, however, SnowCap limited that to every other month.

She also drained SnowCap’s cash reserves, believing that an economic recovery would return operations to normal. That hasn’t happened.

“We don’t have any cash,” she says. “No reserves. We went through it during what we thought was an economic disaster.”

She doesn’t regret spending so much during the tough times, she says, “but it’s just gone on and on. Yes, people are going back to work. But they’re going back to part-time, minimum-wage jobs when they used to have real jobs.

“That’s why people who never thought they’d use food pantries like this are now making it a regular part of their strategy,” she adds.

Private Donors

Private donors have stepped in to help as they can. SnowCap got a boost when Casey Ryan, vice president for Riverview Community Bank, started a food drive in 2010 that collected 180,000 pounds of groceries and other items. That was enough to meet SnowCap’s needs for a month. In 2011, the food drive collected 300,000 pounds, enough for nearly two months. A roofing company approached Ms. Alley this month to coordinate its own food drive for her organization, which she said does not have the staff to increase fundraising beyond an annual auction for a dinner.

“The community has been wonderful,” Ms. Alley says. “I don’t know how long the Great Depression lasted, but even that came to an end. We didn’t think this could go on forever. But surprise, surprise.”