Study shows use of emergency food programs in N.J. up 11 percent

The number of people who depend on emergency feeding programs in South Jersey increased 11 percent over the last four years, according to a national study released yesterday.

The Food Bank of South Jersey helped feed 93,400 people through programs in Camden, Gloucester, Burlington, and Salem Counties in 2009, up from 84,100 in 2005, according to the study.

"The increase was absolutely attributable to the recession," said Val Traore, chief executive officer of the Pennsauken-based agency, which supplies food pantries, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, youth programs, and senior centers.

"A whole new crop of people hurt by the economy joined with people who were already hurting," she said.

By her group's calculations, Traore said, it distributed 41 percent more pounds of food last year than in 2008.

"It is very difficult to live in New Jersey," she concluded.

Many of those in need of food assistance are children, according to the study. Thirty-nine percent of the household members in Food Bank feeding programs last year were under 18; about 11 percent were 5 or younger.

The report revealed that 39 percent of households that got nutrition assistance also received food stamps.

"Going to a food bank is a very unexpected experience for me," said Albert Crawley, 52, of Browns Mills, a relative newcomer to the world of emergency feeding. "I don't like it."

Crawley, an unemployed truck driver, was among about 1,000 laid off in May 2008 by the bankrupt Jevic Transportation Co. of Delanco. To help feed himself, his 5-year-old daughter, and his wife, who also is not working, he visits the Christian Caring Center food pantry in Pemberton once or twice a month.

"It makes me feel like I can't provide for my family, although everybody at the center is so nice," Crawley said.

Betty Moody, 63, a retired home-health aide from Burlington, is a regular client at the pantry at Faith Christian Counseling Center in Beverly. She lives on a small Social Security stipend.

"I could hardly eat unless I went to the pantry," Moody explained. "People are hungry and really in need. So many are having a hard time. People really can't survive without this food."

The study, conducted every four years, was commissioned by Feeding America, the largest domestic hunger-relief charity in the country.

Nearly 90 percent of the nation's food banks - including Traore's agency and Philabundance, headquartered in Philadelphia - belong to Feeding America, which is based in Chicago. The 200 member agencies distribute 2.6 billion pounds of supplies to 61,000 feeding programs.

Nationally, 37 million people - one in eight Americans - received emergency food assistance through the Feeding America network last year, 46 percent more than in 2005, the study found. That figure included 14 million children, nearly one of every five children in the United States.

The number of Americans unable to consistently get enough to eat was 49 million individuals in 17.1 million households last year, a 36 percent increase over 2008, according to an annual survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in November.

The Feeding America study was conducted by Mathematica Policy Research Inc. In South Jersey, about 3,000 Food Bank clients were interviewed or filled out surveys provided by the Princeton research firm, Traore said.

The Food Bank was charged $1,500 for its participation, Traore said.

Philabundance and other Pennsylvania food banks did not take part in the study. A Philabundance spokeswoman said that her organization, the largest hunger-relief agency in the region, did not have the resources to hire staff to work with Mathematica.

Conceived as emergency-only resources, food banks these days are "everyday places for people to go" because of unrelenting economic woes, Traore said.

"We are becoming the ShopRite and Acme for the poor," she said. "But giving out food is still not solving the problem."

Hunger will continue, Traore said, unless the poor and working poor receive better job-training, education, and literacy programs.

"That's what we're concentrating on," she said. "How to impact lives in a long-standing way."