BOOTHEEL FOOD BANK NEEDS TO GROW AS DEMAND FOR SERVICES SKYROCKET

SIKESTON -- In the last quarter of 1992, 21,800 households in Southeast Missouri received food donated through the Bootheel Food Bank.

Situated among the state's poorest counties (nearly 36 percent of Pemiscot residents 7,700 people live below the poverty line), the organization is a lifeline to many.

The Bootheel Food Bank was formed in 1985, growing out of the work of the Sikeston Rescue Mission. The president of its board is Sikeston banker Joel Montgomery, who was president of rescue mission board.

"It was established to supply food to an area that wasn't being served," says Dorene Johnson, who has been the food bank's executive director since the beginning.

The food bank has grown enormously since then, including a spurt between 1988 and 1989 that more than doubled its distribution of food to more than 3 million pounds. "More people were aware we had the facility to distribute the food, and more people became needy," Johnson explained.

One of these groups she identifies as the "new American poor" the unemployed, "people who never knew what it meant to ask for a food basket."

For the food bank, the result has been some growing pains. It requires more office spaces, and needs to enlarge its warehouse by 3,000 square feet to allow room for salvaging, sorting, repackaging.

Johnson said the organization also wants to enclose its loading dock and to build freezer space.

An upgraded computer system and a new forklift are other needs.

Johnson also runs the nearby Sikeston Rescue Mission Food Pantry, which dispenses food to needy people from 11 a.m.-noon on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. It's organized to be able to serve one person per minute, and what they get normally is a three-day supply of potluck.

"What's in there is what we've got," Johnson said. "We don't try to well-round it."

Publicity is a mixed blessing, she says, that often results in more demand for those precious boxes of cereal and jugs of Gatorade.

"What we really need is more people who will help us help them," Johnson said.