Oregon food pantries are struggling to keep up with demand while statewide unemployment hovers around 10% and the state leads the nation in childhood hunger.
Oregon food pantries are struggling to keep up with demand while statewide unemployment hovers around 10% and the state leads the nation in childhood hunger.
Demand for food has more than quadrupled at the East Portland/Gresham Corps of The Salvation Army, said Major James Sullivan.
…The food pantry averages 1,861 people — or 640 families — a month and the numbers are growing. Between Jan. 1 and August of this year, demand is up 30 percent over the same period in 2010, Sullivan said.
While demand skyrockets, The Salvation Army’s donations are down 10 percent, resulting in smaller food boxes that barely feed a family for a day or two, Sullivan said.
“We have no choice,” he said. “We simply give out less food. It (the economy) has really hit East County hard.”
Read more at The Gresham Outlook.
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