The demand at Operation Hope’s Food Pantry has increased at least 25 percent since the economy plummeted a year ago September – and it is rising, according to officials at the nonprofit organization, which has been serving the hungry and the homeless since 1986.
With the unemployment rate in Connecticut now at 8.5 percent, agencies like Operation Hope worry about keeping up with their clients’ needs, particularly emergency food assistance.
Fairfielders always are generous where the Food Pantry is concerned, but more donations are needed to meet the growing demand. “People still want to give back and so they think of because we are here, they know us, we are in the community, perhaps because their congregation supports us, their school is doing something – they still think of us – but the need has increased,” said Carla Miklos, the executive director of Operation Hope.
While donations remain steady, “There could be a slight change in the way people are giving,” added Miklos about the kinds of items donated to the pantry recently, “but I think it is more that more of it is going out the door.”
According to the Connecticut Food Bank, which provides stock to hundreds of emergency feeding programs, including Operation Hope, an estimated 280,000 people are at risk of hunger every year in Connecticut. A recent survey of food pantry and soup kitchen clients in Connecticut, according to the CFB, revealed that 42 percent had to choose between paying for food or utilities; 34 percent had to choose between paying for food or rent; and 30 percent had to choose between paying for food or medical care.
Ellen Redgate, who has been the coordinator of the Food Pantry since 1989, said, “I have to admit, I always panic at this time of year because this is always a low time of year … But I think it is definitely worse than it’s ever been.”
On a recent morning, Redgate looked around the pantry shelves and observed, “It is normal to be low, but not normal to be as low as we are.”
Operation Hope measures the demand for food by the number of “meals” that clients pick up at the pantry. While the term “meals” is difficult to define, the numbers more than adequately explain the situation. In 2008, 88,000 meals left the pantry; so far this year through September, 89,000. Miklos and Redgate both estimate that number to exceed 100,000 by year’s end.
Recipients, who must be income eligible, are given approximately one week’s worth of food at each visit and may use the pantry a maximum of two times each month – although no one is turned away should he or she need a little more in between.
The pantry may serve the greater Fairfield area, but the majority of the clients are from Fairfield. Miklos said, “They are people we know … we definitely see the elderly, we definitely see single people who are marginally employed or perhaps they are disabled or for whatever reason are struggling, and then we see plenty of families with kids…
“We see people from all walks of life in Fairfield. You never know who is going to be hit with just a bump in the road or who needs some longer-term assistance. We are here to serve both of them. The worst thing to think of is somebody being hungry.”
The ongoing sustainability of the pantry is uppermost important for Miklos and Redgate. Regular donations continue and the pantry gets assistance from some larger-scale contributors, like Stop & Shop, and the Connecticut Food Bank, but more still is needed. To make matters worse, the CFB also can’t keep up with the demand.
Miklos encourages schools, including individual classrooms; youth sports organizations; neighborhood associations; business offices; book clubs; and church groups to conduct their own food drives. “I talk to kids – a lot of the kids in town support us because their classroom does a food drive, I try to also say to them, ‘If you play a sport or something, maybe admission into practice is that everyone has to bring in a box of cereal’ … something to get them thinking about it being connected to other things they do.”