But ends don’t always meet

Photo Credit: Ashlee Fairey

Once a month at 12:00 p.m. sharp, Diane Groom lines up in front of the Love Gospel Assembly food pantry located on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx’s Fordham Heights. If she isn’t among the first 75 people there, she won’t get her bag of food.

After receiving her monthly rations of canned goods, bread and powdered milk she moves on to another food pantry a couple blocks away. “I’m not greedy,” she said. “I’m just trying to make ends meet.”

Groom is one of hundreds who visited the Love Gospel Assembly pantry this week, and one of 300,000 New Yorkers who turn to pantries and soup kitchens each week to feed themselves in these hard economic times, according to a 2006 City Harvest study. People piece together meals from pay checks, pantries and food stamps, and while the practice is far from unprecedented, the recession has made finding food more stressful.

Hungry hopefuls line up each afternoon at LGA to receive their tickets, ID in hand. The pantry, open Monday through Friday, registers every client so pantry workers know how many family members are in each household, and to make sure people don’t exceed their once-a-month visit. The first 75 clients are allowed to pick up bags of groceries; the others have to return the next day, or move on to another nearby pantry.

Every morning, 144 black plastic bags are prepared with groceries from the Food Bank; single clients take away one bag, but those with larger families take home two to three. “There is such a great need now,” said Minister Jeffrey Williams, who helps oversee the community outreach programs at LGA. “We used to prepare 96 bags. Then six or seven years ago we switched to 120 bags, and three years ago we started making 144.”

Larimal Blanco, 20, and her mother have come every month for two years. Poking through the month’s rations for her, her mother and two younger sisters, Blanco found a can of beans, two cans of applesauce and spinach, two bags of pasta, a bag of potatoes, a jar of peanut butter, two boxes of crackers, two cartons of powdered milk and a bag of sun-dried tomatoes. Fresh meat and produce is given out about three times a week, Minister Williams said.

Some clients are less than satisfied with the amount, however. “They don’t give you anything,” said Groom, who has been going to LGA for three years. “I get two cans of vegetables, a can of tuna, powdered milk and a bag of rice. That lasts me maybe a couple of days.” Which is why, after stopping off at LGA, she continues on to another pantry. “I know where the food pantries are,” Groom said. “You gotta know where at least a couple are.”

Williams is well aware that LGA is not the sole stop for most clients. “These people are just trying to survive,” he said, and to help them along he passes out a list of several other local pantries. “We’re here to help people eat between pay checks.”

A 2006 City Harvest study said, “It is a commonly held view that employment provides a path out of poverty.” The notion that as employment numbers increase, hunger decreases, however, is not always the case: the study found that 32 percent of client households in New York City have one or more person employed.

Williams estimated that 40 percent of LGA clients are employed. Even with some money in their wallets, he said, “many have to choose between paying rent and eating, or between eating and paying utilities and laundry.”

Groom has a part time job as a maintenance person at an apartment building. Yet the money she earns from her position is used to pay her $962 rent for the studio apartment she shares with her partner. She receives food stamps once a month, but they rarely last her past three weeks. “You run out,” she said. “That’s where the food pantries come in.”

Royce Moyd, a home health aide, is also finding that his food stamps don’t go very far. He receives $200 in food stamps every month; $100 goes to groceries, while the other $100 he “flips,” meaning he cashes-in his stamps to buy toiletries and pay for laundry, an illegal but common practice among food stamp recipients according to Williams and pantry clients. “Flippers” find Food and Nutrition Service employees who are willing to secretly offer cash for stamps, though the practice is outlawed for fear people will use the money to purchase illicit items other than food, Moyd explained. Yet flipping is the only way he is able to pay for non-food related daily necessities, leaving less in his pocket for groceries.

Making $100 worth of food last a month is a challenge, but “I eat in moderation,” Moyd said. “I eat to survive. I eat at the soup kitchen to save what I have at home.”

In addition to the pantry, LGA offers a soup kitchen every morning where people are welcome to return day after day. They sit in a large, lavender dinning room at wooden tables while volunteers serve bread and soup. The kitchen serves about 300 people a day, said Pastor Stephen Esele, the kitchen and pantry director.

Hard economic times are leading more and more hungry people to LGA’s doors, but the recession is affecting the organization’s ability to provide for everyone. Esele estimated a client increase of 30 percent in the past year, but funding has decreased.

The 700 to 800 members of the Love Gospel Assembly are expected to donate 10 percent of their income as annual church fees. Ten percent of those contributions are then funneled to the soup kitchen and food pantry. Pastor Esele said about 80 percent of the kitchen and pantry funding comes from these donations; the remaining 20 percent comes from state and federal grants.

With many church members having lost their jobs this year, however, donations have sharply decreased, Esele said. “It’s had a significant impact on our efforts to try and keep the kitchen and pantry open.” The church has cut down on administrative costs in order to bolster the food service coffers. “Our workers barely get paid,” he said. “We have a lot of volunteers.”

When LGA does receive a grant, the money is distributed directly to the Food Bank, which then ships food orders in installments. When grant money runs out, LGA is uses its own money to purchase wholesale food through the Food Bank. When the money is low, so is the food.

“There have been days this year when we have had to only do referrals,” Esele said. When there is not enough food to fill the pantry bags, LGA will direct clients to other kitchens. The few bags they have are reserved for families in crisis.

“We try to be obliging,” said Williams. “But the only way to stay open is to ration what we have from month to month.”