Food banks report spike in needy on Thanksgiving

CHICAGO -- The line for a Thanksgiving meal was long when the Chicago Christian Industrial League shelter opened Thursday morning, and volunteers served more than 200 people in the first 40 minutes -- record demand for the shelter.

Among the hungry were familiar faces, people who had eaten their last Thanksgiving meal at the shelter and others who had helped provide those meals, said executive director Mary Shaver.

"These are the people who are always giving money -- and now they're asking for help," Shaver said. "These were the people donating money to us."

As millions of American families gathered to give thanks for what they have, food banks and shelters across the country struggled to cope with a spike in demand for their services. With more people feeling the weight of the economic downturn, those who oversee the charities say they are seeing many new faces on food lines.

"Food bank after food bank tells me it's new faces, people they haven't seen before," said Ross Fraser, spokesman for Feed America, a Chicago-based charity that coordinates corporate donations to more than 200 U.S. food banks. "They will tell you it's the worst it's ever been."

"Starting about a year ago, we've seen a very significant spike in the demand," Fraser said. "It used to be the poorest of the poor who came to us for help."

Donations to the Salvation Army in the Washington, D.C., area have dropped 20 percent, while the agency grapples with a 30 percent increase in requests for assistance, said Maj. Steve Morris, the organization's area commander.

The Food Bank of Alaska in Anchorage dipped into its Christmas reserves to make sure everyone seeking Thanksgiving Day donations received them. The food bank handed out turkey dinners Monday to 5,787 people at eight sites, about one-third more than last year's 4,237.

At the Fred Jordan Mission in downtown Los Angeles, organizers expected to feed between 2,000 and 3,000 families Thursday. Since the year began, the number of people seeking food or transitional housing has jumped at least 15 percent, said Tom Jordan, executive vice president of the Mission.

"With the state of the nation, the way the economy is, so many people are scrambling just to stay afloat," Jordan said.

Jeremy Reynalds, chief executive of Joy Junction shelter in Albuquerque, N.M., said the troubled economy has doubled the number of residents seeking shelter, while average donations have been cut in half.

"We're working twice as hard to get more donors, who are giving less. The average Joe doesn't have any disposable income to give. The word that's going around for 2009 is to target your richer or more well-off donors because the others don't have a penny to give," Reynalds said.