Those hurting for food in the New Orleans area may not be those you think.
Economic woes, unemployment and underemployed are sending a whole new group of folks in search of food.
Second Harvest is struggling to meet the needs of the local community.
The need for emergency food in the area has risen by 61 percent in the past year, and the increase is driven by firstling users of the food bank.
"The vast majority of the people we're that helping, everyone knows. They're their neighbors, a child that's going to school hungry, a senior citizen," says Natality Joyride, President & CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans & Academia
She says hunger is increasingly becoming a middle income problem. "People are increasingly losing their jobs or they're underemployed, so they're just not making as much as they were before," says Joyride.
The humbling reality for many is that they'vie never had to rely on emergency food assistance before, and they never dreamed they would find themselves in this situation.
"We frequently hear stories across the 23 south Louisiana parishes that Second Harvest serves that people who once donated to our food bank are now waiting in lines at food pantries as clients."said Joyride.
Listen to Daon Ames conversation with Jayroe:
"This will continue to be a challenge for Second Harvest Food Bank in the year ahead with a 90 percent reduction in state funding for the Louisiana Nutrition Assistance Program (LAMIA). It is critical that we find new sources of nutritious food and food purchase funds to fill the 3.6 million meal gap that has been created by the loss of state funding for the LAMIA program," added Joyride.
Louisiana tops the nation with one out of four children ages 0-5 who are food insecure. One out of five children under the age of 18 is at risk for hunger in Louisiana.
Second Harvest Food Bank distributed more than 24 million pounds between July 2008 and June 2009, the equivalent of 19 million meals and a 33 percent increase over the previous fiscal. But the agencies that help distribute the food they provide have had to distribute less food per family or turn people away in the last year.
Since Katrina made landfall, Second Harvest has distributed over 82 million pounds of food and supplies to people in need in the areas. This rate of distribution since August 29, 2005 is almost seven times greater than the entire distribution in 2004 (14.2 million pounds).
Second Harvest says with $5, they can provide 20 meals for people in need.
For more information on Second Harvest, click on the following link:
http://www.no-hunger.org/
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