St. Mary's Food Bank aids record numbers

GLENDALE - A record number of Valley families picked up holiday food boxes from St. Mary's Food Bank Alliance for Thanksgiving.

The charity is expecting demand to remain high for months as the impact of falling home values, rising unemployment and a worsening economy hits household pocketbooks hard.

"Donations are not keeping pace," said Terry Shannon, the organization's president and CEO. "We're eating into our reserve inventories. It's not only food but financial resources (that are lacking)."

In the three days leading up to Thanksgiving, volunteers at St. Mary's Glendale site, 5605 N. 55th Ave., gave out almost twice as many food baskets as last year.

At its central Phoenix location, 2831 N. 31st Ave., food pickups rose 85 percent.

Valley-wide, the organization provided 1,163, or 53 percent, more meals this year than in 2007.

Lines of up to 100 cars stretched through some distribution sites' parking lots.

"That's not normal," Shannon said.

The increases are not because of a windfall of contributions, he said, although financial aid and canned-food donations have increased slightly.

Instead, requests for help are skyrocketing.

As the economy flails, all sorts of people are finding themselves hungry, not just the ones being laid off, Shannon said.

"The ripple impact of a job loss is much more far reaching," he said.

One person's spending cutbacks can dig into the salaries of waiters, hairdressers and other employees who used to depend on that person's business, he said.

With such demand for help, the food bank worries the traditional holiday giving won't fill the pantry reserve on which the organization relies the rest of the year.

"Come January 5 or February 3, the folks who are in tough situations now are still going to be in tough situations," Shannon said. "We hope we can generate some surpluses."

One bright spot is a sign that more affluent donors are stepping up.

"The number of financial gifts is down, but the average gift amount is up" by about 12 percent, Shannon said. "That tells us if we had a donor that was giving $25 or $30 at a time, now they're needing to use that for their own needs. But the donor that has been able to weather the storm is giving larger gifts.

"It's truly neighbors helping neighbors," he said.