Suburban women, many looking a decade older than their ages, awaited their turn to collect strawberries, bananas and bread being distributed by Philabundance, the hunger-relief agency, at a Delaware County Housing Authority building in Woodlyn.

Several of them, including Marisa Koerbel of Lower Merion, were there to plug the summer feeding gap - to find food for their children, who usually get free or reduced-price breakfasts and lunches in schools now closed for summer.

Hunger isn't just an empty plate on a Philly table.

It touches the suburbs, too. And the number of poor and working-poor families scrambling to find food outside Philadelphia is growing.

Although various suburban programs offer meals for youngsters in July and August, there are far fewer options than in Philadelphia, which has many more feeding sites.

"Look at him, he's underweight," Koerbel, 37, said, tilting her head toward her son, Tyler Sylvester, who completed fourth grade at Merion Elementary School. "There are days I can't feed him everything he needs. I feel embarrassed being on welfare in the high-dollar area where I live."

Tyler, 10, who gets free lunch at school, said he understands what's happening and feels bad. "She doesn't have much money," he said of his mother. "My best friend's dad works at Villanova. He makes lots of money and he has lots of food."

Koerbel said she gets no child support and is home to care for her two other children, ages 2 and 4. Shaking her head, she said, "It's hard being hungry on the Main Line."

Suburban need is growing. In the 2006-07 school year, 54,905 children in Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery Counties relied on free or reduced-price school lunches - a 24 percent increase in four years.

Chester County experienced the biggest jump - 42 percent. More than 10,000 children countywide got subsidized meals in the 2006-07 school year, according to data from the Pennsylvania Department of Education compiled by the Pennsylvania Hunger Action Center in Harrisburg.

An Inquirer survey of summer programs in the Pennsylvania suburbs found they fed only 15 percent of eligible low-income children.

That left some 47,000 youngsters in the suburbs who normally eat subsidized meals without that food in July and August.

"These kids are orphaned for the summer," said Patrick Druhan, food-resources director for the Montgomery County Community Action Development Commission. "Aside from pockets of poverty like Norristown, many hungry suburban kids are scattered.

"It's one of these cracks in the system, where everything is fine till school lets out. And nobody's taken up the task."

To qualify for a free school lunch, a family of four can make up to $27,400 a year - 130 percent of the federal poverty level.

For reduced-price meals, a family of four can't exceed $39,200 - 185 percent of poverty. A reduced-price meal costs parents 40 cents or less.

Knowing there are hungry children unseen in the suburbs "makes me crazy," said Anne Ayella, assistant director at Nutritional Development Services, part of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Ayella's group runs 550 summer feeding programs in the five-county area. "People don't realize there are poor people in the suburbs."

Feeding gaps also exist in South Jersey, where nearly 70,000 students are eligible for free and reduced summer feeding programs but few exist, advocates say.