Nonprofit resource centers MUST Ministries and The Center for Family Resources experience summer drops in their food and financial donations annually, but this year the shelves emptied even sooner than expected.

According to interim CEO Thomas E. Riddle, MUST Ministries has seen a 35 percent increase of people in need over this time last year. With this increase in demand coinciding with a decrease in donations, MUST is hard-pressed to help their clients.

Riddle partially attributes the shortages to summer vacation: “Families have children who are eating a couple more meals a day than they do when they’re at school, because they have free and reduced lunches there. We have a greater demand in the summer, but for a variety of reasons, the collections are slower.”

The slow economy is aggravating the shortage. According to Annette Lee, the director of the MUST’s donation center, her inventory is the lowest it has ever been in her 4 years there. More than half of the inventory sheet she had on hand was marked with dashes, meaning there were no items in that category on the shelves.

“I know, based on history, how much I need to have in here,” Lee said. “It’s just gone out the door quicker than I can get it in.”

MUST Ministries typically distributes 1 tons of food, or 2,500 canned items, each day to families in need in Cobb and Cherokee counties, among their other programs, including clothing, housing, education, and financial assistance. They see 32,000 people a year, and in the summer they can serve more than 100 a day, Lee said.

Clients can come four times a year for food help, Lee said, and “they get a three-day supplement for all the individuals … The program is set up basically to get people from paycheck to paycheck.”

MUST tries to supply a well-rounded diet, but “when you only have macaroni and cheese and peanut butter, it’s kind of hard to do that,” Lee said.

Lee added that they “do experience a decline in financial donations as well. During the summer months, people are spending their extra money on vacations,” so monetary and food donations are encouraged.

She stressed that the people in need are “neighbors, not people in transit. There are folks that have been out of work for a long time, they are finding themselves without homes and not able to feed themselves. It’s a basic need they should be allowed. MUST operates on the Christian belief that we take care of others that are less fortunate than ourselves.”

Many churches and local organizations host MUST donation barrels, Riddle said, and “volunteers use our trucks, go to those sites, pick up the barrels and bring them here. We couldn’t operate the organization without the good volunteers.”

He says there are about 4,000 active volunteers on the roster, and even though hard times have hit, there has not been a drop in this number.

“We have folks who are looking for work who are volunteering with us as they conduct their search,” he added.

Mr. Riddle’s appeal to the community is “now is the time that our shelves are beginning to empty, and we need food. We really need the community to support us, so that we can deliver our 1.25 tons a day. We really don’t want to have to consider giving out less food.”

The Center for Family Resources is also hard-pressed to meet their rising summer demands. CFR generally provides food for about 2,336 households a year, along with offering financial payment, transportation, housing and education assistance.

Jerri Barr, CEO of the Center for Family Resources, says that since Jan 1, CFR has served more than 2,100 families in their food pantry. She says the total demand for all their services, which includes help with rent and utilities payments as well as food, rose 252 percent in the first quarter of the year.

As with MUST, CFR’s demand rises while donations fall. Barr said they can never keep up with the demand, though it is even harder in the summer. The children come home from school, but the amount of food stamps do not go up in the summer, and the extra mouths prove to be an additional burden that pushes a family over the edge, Barr said.

According to Barr, most of the families CFR helps are “low-income working poor that work a patchwork of part-time jobs” to make ends meet.

A family can come in four times a year for food help. Each family receives about $50 to $100 worth of groceries, depending on the size of the family, which will last them about three to five days.

If they do not receive any more food donations, they would have no food left to give out in less than two weeks, Barr said.

Ms. Barr states that food donations are “the most basic thing we can do to help a family get by. It frees up any other disposable income,” which can be used to solve other shortages in the household.

Families can get one-time help with big rental or utilities payments.

Barr says individuals are still giving, but because of the economy, they are giving less. Businesses are also not able to do their sponsorships or donate as much as usual. Any government support the organization receives is also going down, because of the economy, Barr said.

She said CFR is grateful to be located in Cobb, because “people in Cobb care about their fellow citizen and reach out to help.”

HOW TO HELP

MUST

* The items needed most include cereal and other breakfast items, canned meats, fruit, dry and canned milk, spaghetti sauce, dry and canned potatoes, box dinners, peanut butter, and jelly. Groceries are accepted at the Donation Center, 1210 B Kennestone Circle off Highway 41 in Marietta, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Donation barrels are located at 20 locations at local churches and organizations in the area.

To organize a food drive or volunteer, contact Annette Lee at (678) 581-8090 or annettejlee@mustministries.org. For more information on where to find donation locations or to make a financial donation online, go to www.mustministries.org.

CFR

* The greatest demand in the CFR food pantry is for canned vegetables, pasta, rice, breakfast items, canned fruit, canned meat, and protein items like peanut butter. CEO Jerri Barr recommends for people who coupon to use their “buy one get one free” coupons, and bring the free item to the donation center as a simple way to donate. She also recommends that groups like offices, book clubs, neighborhood, and churches do food drives for the Center for Family Resources. Donations can be brought to the Center at 995 Roswell St. NE, Suite 100 in Marietta.

For more information or to make a financial donation, visit thecfr.org or call (770) 428-2601.

(Reprinted from the MDJ, June 30, 2011. Written by Margaret Landers)