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The Yorkville Common Pantry handed out 2,200 turkeys in the days before Thanksgiving – but that wasn’t enough to meet the demand of the 9,000 families the charity serves.

“Unfortunately, we’ve had to turn [people] away, that’s the sad reality,” said Daniel Reyes, director of the pantry, which raised $35,000 to buy the turkeys.

Rising food costs, tough economic times and an increase in hungry people are proving a triple whammy for city food pantries and soup kitchens this holiday season.

Growing Hunger

There’s been a 28 percent hike in the number of people using food pantries and soup kitchens in the last year, bringing the number of New Yorkers served to 1.3 million, according to the New York City Coalition Against Hunger.

Meanwhile, the number of people across the country seeking help from food relief programs has risen 25 to 45 percent, while donations have gone up by 18 percent, according to Feeding America.

“Actually, during Thanksgiving people are less likely to go hungry because more people give out food,” said Joel Berg, director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger. “So if it’s this bad now, just imagine the rest of the year.”

Major Challenges

The tough economy and rising food prices are presenting food relief operations with major challenges. A gallon of milk costs nearly a dollar more than last year, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, and the prices of such Thanksgiving staples as turkey, cranberries, whipping cream and pumpkin pie mix are up.

“We’ve raised an unprecedented amount of money this year,” said Reyes, whose pantry gave away about 1,000 turkeys in 2006. “We’ve worked very hard, but at the same time the cost of Thanksgiving has also gone up a lot.”

“We are in a food crisis and it becomes glaringly clear at this time with the holidays when folks have to get turned away because we are unable to provide them with food,” he added.

When a car full of young men pulled up to Ali Kamara near his Staten Island home shortly after Barack Obama’s historic election victory, the teen didn’t run – he said he thought he was about to be stopped by cops.

Moments later, the 17-year-old high school student said he found himself instinctively covering his face as he had been taught in boxing class while his attackers pounded him with pipes and a baton, and yelled, “Obama!”

As he recovers from his injuries, Kamara, a Black Muslim, described the racially charged beating – and vowed he isn’t going to let the suspected hate attack shake him from his goal of becoming a pediatrician.

“I try to wake up early in the morning, go to school, make the best out of it, like, just to learn so that I can make my mom happy,” said the Curtis High School student, who has been taking extra classes to make up the time lost to his injuries.

“That can’t stop me from doing anything,” said Kamara, who suffered a head wound and was left with a limp by the early Nov. 5 beating.

“They could’ve killed me, though, and not make me try to be who I wanted to be when I grew up… I want to meet them to ask them why it had to be me,” Kamara said.

‘Cowards in The Night’

Two white teenagers, described as “cowards in the night” by a prosecutor, have been charged in the early Nov. 5 beating near the intersection of Pine and Broad streets in predominantly black Park Hill.

Ralph Nicoletti and Bryan Garaventa, both 18, face counts of assault as a hate crime and criminal possession of a weapon. The teens, who pleaded not guilty, could get up to 15 years in prison, if convicted.

Cops are looking for two other suspects in the attack, which prosecutors said came shortly after members of the quartet shouted racial slurs outside a local nail salon.

Kamara said he had spent most of election night playing video games at a friend’s house. Around midnight, after watching the election results, he walked home. He was a few houses away from his home when a car pulled up just before a stop sign.

“That is when the two kids hopped out and I thought it was the cops,” said Kamara.

“So, I stood there. I’m waiting for them to search me, because if I run, [they’re] going to chase me,” said Kamara, adding that cops had stopped him once in the past, and let him go after finding nothing amiss. “They’re going to say, I had drugs on me or ‘Why you running?’ or ‘We got to take you to the precinct to see if you’ve got any criminal (record).’

Next thing he knew, Kamara said, he was being beaten. He said he put his hands over his face as the attackers clubbed him and called him “Obama.”

Another car soon drove by and the four men fled. “That car saved my life,” Kamara said.

Kamara said he got up, ran and jumped over a fence of a nearby house, and called his mom – and 911.

“If I wasn’t going to get up, they was going to kill me,” said Kamara, “because they kept hitting me hard.”

A Mother’s Nightmare

Kamara’s mother thought she had left senseless violence behind eight years ago when she fled war-torn Liberia with her son and settled on Staten Island. Now, she said, her life has been turned upside down.

“Every day, I have to give him medication for his head,” said Janeba Ladepo, 36, a resident assistant at the United Cerebral Palsy facility near her son’s school. “I go to work and I cry. I think about my son everyday.”

“We don’t deserve this. We are a poor people coming to this country for our daily bread.”

Ladepo said she wanted to see the other two suspects brought to justice soon.

“I’m not going to say that all white people are bad,” she said. “Four people did this to my son. I consider them to be bad people.”

Demands for Justice

The incident has shaken Staten Island and spurred demands for justice. Elected officials have put up a $6,600 reward. Some residents have proposed a borough-wide conversation on race, and have called on schools to use Obama’s upcoming inauguration as a “teaching moment” about racial relations.

“There is hate because of fear. There is fear because of ignorance,” Hesham El-Meligy, a New Springville resident and Muslim community representative, said at a recent public meeting of the Staten Island African-American Political Association. “We have a problem of not acknowledging the problem.”

Dora Berksteiner, president of the Staten Island African-American Political Association, said she received about 10 phone calls from Staten Island residents about children taunting other children after Obama’s victory.

“We have a black president and for some people, it’s like the world has come to an end,” Berksteiner said. “When he is inaugurated, I expect we’ll have more problems.”

John Martin of Woodlawn in the Bronx votes November 4, 2008, at a polling place near where he has lived his whole life. Photo by Indrani Datta

Harriet Christian is a lifelong Democrat and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) supporter who voted for Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-Az). Photo by Indrani Datta

Harriet Christian is a lifelong Democrat who works as a waitress in Manhattan. John Martin is a Navy reservist who’s always voted for Republicans.

They look like the stereotypical voters for their respective parties. And, for the first time in their lives, they voted for the opposing party’s candidate.

“I read the National Review, listened to Rush Limbaugh, volunteered for Rudy Giuliani,” said Martin, 30, who is in his third year at St. John’s University Law School. “Any sense of loyalty I had for the party has eroded in the last eight years. I don’t feel like I owe the party anything.”

Christian was a die-hard supporter of Hillary Clinton. But lately, she’s been clocking most of her time as a very visible member of DemocratsforMcCain.com. When the Democratic National Committee supported Barack Obama, the 65-year-old McCain convert very publicly aired her frustration. The scene was captured on video, and live on YouTube, where it’s gotten more than a million and a half views.

“I’m part of the core base of the Democratic Party, “ said Christian. “I fought very hard for Hillary. I was extremely disappointed at the stealing of the nomination from her. I realized it had become very corrupt, the Democratic Party.”

Two years ago, Martin founded Republicans for Obama, a grassroots organization that now boasts 2,500 registered Republicans from all across the country. Starting the group has raised his profile, but also had some negative consequences.

“Since I started, I’ve gotten some hate mail,” said Martin. “It’s always full of grammatical errors.”

With their heightened profiles, both Martin and Christian have become more careful about how they present themselves in public. Martin kept his black windbreaker free of campaign buttons on Election Day, but Christian entered the polling place with her preferences on her lapels: a “Hillary” brooch on one side and a “McCain” brooch on the other. Her navy blue blazer sported “Democrats for McCain” and “Nobama” buttons.

Neither Martin nor Christian plan on changing their party affiliations. Still, they are both disillusioned about the direction of the country and their Parties.

“My priority is helping the Republican Party back on its feet,” said Martin of his hopes for the conservative movement. But his work for Obama fits in with that view, he added. “I’m not under some illusion that he’s conservative. But I don’t want to see a Republican Congress that will hijack Obama’s efforts to get the country on track.”

Although Christian is impressed with John McCain’s judgment and character, she is also aware of his divergence from her core issues, such as abortion.

“My vote is primarily a protest vote against the Democratic Party,” she said. “Against a party that has told 18 million of us, the ones who voted for Hillary, that there’s no place for us.”