Need at Food Pantry Up 20% Over Last Year

Need in Wakefield has increased by 20 percent this year, but that's actually not a surprise, said Maureen Miller, director of operations at the

That's because the amount of families who need help putting food on the table has increased by 20 percent or more every year since 2007.

"We had a large increase for the first time in 2007, then two years in 2008 and 2009 where need increased by 30 percent each year," Miller said. "We keep thinking it's going to flatten out, but it's grown by 20 percent every year for the last several years."

Statewide trend
According to the latest report by Project Bread, the state’s largest anti-hunger organization, 10.8 percent of all Massachusetts families - about 700,000 people - have been identified as "food insecure," the highest measured rate since statistics were first recorded in 1995.

The Project Bread report also notes an increase in once considered "middle-class" families who are now facing harder times, a trend Miller said she sees in Wakefield.

"We have some families who are embarrassed that they have to come here to get food, or their children are embarrased to know where they get their food," Miller said. "A lot of our clients are seasonal workers, so they might work in the summer for a landscaping company and in the winter do snow plowing but if there's no snow, there's no jobs," she said. "Or they might not have a guaranteed regular job every day so they may need help at certain times of the years and not other times."

Meeting the need
Miller said that despite a 20 percent year-over-year increase, the Wakefield community has been adequately meeting the needs of the pantry, at least so far.

In 2010, the Wakefield Interfaith Food Pantry distributed 171,000 pounds of food to about 300 families. This year, there are about 350 families the pantry is currently supporting, through about 4,000 individual visits each month.

"Wakefield is incredible with what they do," said Miller. "We expected our donations to go down with the economy, but they’ve been able to keep track on this 20 percent growth. They've been able to sustain us through donations."

Miller noted she also gets support from the Greater Boston Food Bank, and the move to the new facility at the allows for more storage space, including a large refrigerator and a freezer.

"We can now provide meat to our clients, we have fresh fruit, eggs, cheese, hot dogs, things like that," she said. "And each morning one of our volunteers goes to Stop and Shop and gets all their day old bread. So it’s not the variety you have at Market Basket, but all the essentials."

These items are all in addition to the standard non-perishable items, such as peanut butter, jelly, tomato sauce, pasta, macaroni and cheese, rice, and soup.

Keep up the pace
To get involved with the Wakefield Food pantry, whether you find you need a little bit of extra help or you want to give a little bit of extra help, visit the pantry's website. It features a list of what food is most needed and what volunteers can do to help.