Food pantries and soup kitchens across Brooklyn are running short of food. Managers say donations are down, while demand is up. They blame the long-term effects of the stagnant economy for high unemployment and lower levels of charitable giving, along with the recent impact of storm damage to farms that no longer have produce to donate. Meanwhile, food prices are up, despite the economic downturn.
On a Tuesday in September, our reporters visited a dozen food pantries or soup kitchens in Brooklyn to learn what the people who run them are seeing, and what the people who need them are going through.
The stories provide snapshots of the crisis, from across the borough:
•The Bed-Stuy Campaign Against Hunger operates a “superpantry” model that aims to empower customers by allowing them to select their own boxes, cans and packages of groceries. But with visits up and funding down, the amount of free food is shrinking.
•The team of volunteers at the Bethany United Methodist Church’s soup kitchen in Crown Heights is a mix of grandmothers and folks like 48-year-old Nevel Burnett, who has been searching for work for two years.
•The Southside Community Mission in Williamsburg used to draw primarily seniors with limited pensions and undocumented workers from Latin America. But now the food pantry attracts more “regular families,” reports Jose Javier Bosque, the Mission’s executive director.
•B’nai Raphael Chesed, a privately owned and managed kosher food pantry in Midwood, used to serve about 25 families a week when it opened in 2004. The pantry now receives visits from up to 700 families a week.
•The Salvation Army of Bushwick’s soup kitchen is drawing an increasing number of seniors, who represent more than one-third of the clientele.
•The Hope City Empowerment Center in Prospect Heights provided 10,917 meals and groceries to feed 500 families last year, as demand has increased 25 percent since 2008.
•The First Mary Magdalene Temple of Faith’s Crown Heights food bank ran out of goods for two weeks in August – and is struggling to serve a client base that’s doubled to about 300 people a week since last year.
•St. John’s Bread and Life food pantry in Bedford-Stuyvesant has computerized its operations, allowing users to order food via a touchscreen, providing efficiency of service and an extra measure of dignity.
•Regulars at the Most Holy Trinity Church food pantry in Williamsburg know to bring folding chair and magazine to pass the time on the line outside.
•Hannah Zarzar, director of Hannah’s Kosher Shabbat Food Pantry in Sheepshead Bay, sometimes doesn’t have enough food to open. She instead directs the hungry to other pantries and helps people sign up for food stamps.
•A decade ago, the Trinity Human Services Center used to hand out pamphlets on the streets of Bushwick, touting its food pantry. These days, with a client base that’s increased tenfold, there’s no need to advertise.
