Food Pantries Report Slight Increase in Need

Harrisburg (December 29, 2007). Based on reports from 580 charitable food providers across the State, the number of households provided food during October was up slightly from the same month one year ago. On average, food pantries served 141 households during the month, up from 139 a year earlier. This is an increase of one percent.

The results of Hunger Action’s point-in-time surveys provide the most current data available about changes in food insecurity among Pennsylvania households. First administered in the fall of 2001, the statewide survey of approximately 1,150 food pantries is repeated each October and each March. The October results over the years are reported below:

October 2001 130 households per pantry served
October 2002 121 households per pantry served
October 2003 138 households per pantry served
October 2004 146 households per pantry served
October 2005 141 households per pantry served
October 2006 139 households per pantry served
October 2007 141 households per pantry served

The small increase from one year ago contrasts with the many recent media reports of food pantries in acute need of public support. Berry Friesen, executive director of the Pennsylvania Hunger Action Center, offered this perspective on the contrast. “Across the board, food pantries have lower food inventories because the value of federal commodities is only about half of what it was two years ago, because the state legislature cut the budget of the State Food Purchase Program by 4 percent, and because transportation costs are up. In some cases, pantries also are seeing a sharp increase in the number of families asking for food. Those are the pantries most likely to go to the public for support. But when we look at all of the pantries, the increase in need is less dramatic.”

Helen Canton, the coordinator in the Casselman Valley Helpers in Somerset County, described the situation in her food pantry for The Tribune-Democrat: “We have more people with a greater need. They’ve been robbing Peter to pay Paul, and it’s catching up with them.”

he most recent USDA’s food security survey, released in November, averages data collected over a three-year period from 2004-06. It found that 10 percent of Pennsylvania households were food insecure, about the same as the 9.8 percent in previous report. In addition, it found that during the three-year period, hunger occurred annually in 162,000 Pennsylvania households (3.3 percent). That was the highest percentage recorded for Pennsylvania since the USDA began collecting food security data in 1995.

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