As hunger grows, so do pantries in Lower Hudson Valley
For Pasquale Falco, it started with some bagels.
The pastor of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Rye was preaching to the owner of a bagel store when the man handed Falco 300 bagels and told him to come back every day.
"I looked at my wife and said, 'what am I going to do with all these bagels?' " Falco said.
From that day 10 months ago, Falco now feeds about 5,000 people a week through the Bread of Life food pantry, which delivers food to 18 shelters, soup kitchens and pantries and feeds about 200 families through its own church pantry. Falco collects food from about 20 stores and redistributes it.
When he began, Falco didn't expect the need to be that great. But he's been amazed at what he's seen in the months since: people in shelters who have lost decent paying jobs, families from wealthy towns who put nearly every penny into their mortgages, seniors struggling to get enough to eat.
"The number just keeps growing," Falco said.
Bread of Life is just one of at least 20 new pantries or soup kitchens in Westchester and Rockland counties since 2012, well after the improvement in the economy was supposed to start trickling down to regular people. Instead, the demand has continued to increase and, as existing programs struggle to meet the need, new pantries are stepping into the gap. While Putnam County didn't add new pantries, Green Chimneys Outreach Center in Southeast signed up with the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley to help feed its participants.
Two more pantries are waiting to sign up with the Food Bank for Westchester.
"There may be more jobs but they're not high-paying jobs and they're not steady jobs," said Erica Santiago, the agency relations manager for the Food Bank. Monthly reports from the Food Bank's member agencies show jumps in the numbers of people coming to feeding programs, with 129,938 adults in March compared with 101,177 in March 2013 and 65,744 children in March compared with 62,123 in 2013.
The Food Bank estimates that 20 percent of Westchester residents are at risk of hunger. National estimates of the number of food insecure people, the official term for people who don't always have enough to eat, has continued to rise in Westchester through 2012, the latest year with statistics available, and have fallen somewhat in Rockland and Putnam. But the number of people in the lower Hudson Valley receiving food stamps is still increasing, as it has since the beginning of the recession. In Westchester, 46,036 households received food stamps as of March, according to the state. The number was 17,370 in Rockland and 1,764 in Putnam.
A year earlier there were 44,646 households in Westchester, 16,767 in Rockland and 1,677 in Putnam.
Yesenia Taveras came to a new food pantry started by Steppin' Up Yonkers at the Calcagno Homes in Yonkers on its first day. The single mother of 7- and 5-year-olds spends more than half of her take-home pay on rent, and pantries can be a big help, she said. At the same time, she feels she should be able to leave the pantry to the elderly and people who can't work.
But still, "this is the only way I can make it happen," Taveras said.
Steppin' Up Yonkers started its Angel Food Pantry in September with one food distribution at a senior housing complex in southwest Yonkers. It now has four in the city in partnership with the housing authority. The group wasn't looking to do a food pantry but it's quickly becoming its the largest project.
"Clearly, that's a reflection of the need, the growing need," said Robert Lucas, Steppin' Up's executive director.
The Rockland Independent Living Center started its pantry at the end of 2012 as an outgrowth of a wellness program. In 2013, the pantry had more than 6,000 visits. The pantry has brought in people from all parts of the county, from well beyond the disabled community the center normally serves.
The pantry is open two days a week but its looking to expand.
"It doesn't meet the need, I can tell you," said George Hoehmann, the executive director of the center. "If I could be open another two days a week to serve people we would."
Jude Jean Pierre of Spring Valley came to the Independent Living Center one day last month to pick up some food from the small room that serves as the pantry. The former West Point cafeteria worker heard about the pantry after coming to the center for help with benefits. Without the help, things would be even more difficult, he said.
"I'm sick," he said. "I'm not working."
The Independent Living Center, along with many other pantries, relies on on small donations, partnerships with groups like the Lions Club and small grants. The ability to buy food for 16 cents a pound from the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley, which serves Rockland and Putnam, makes a huge difference.
The members of South Presbyterian Church in Dobbs Ferry started noticing with the financial crisis of 2008 that people without a safety net were suffering. The Dobbs Ferry Food Pantry started with a shelf or two in 2011, then a closet. It was filled through food drives and donations from parishioners.
"At some points the pantry would be empty, like completely empty," said Jen Cadenhead, a pantry volunteer.
In 2013, the pantry hooked up with the Food Bank for Westchester and organized a pantry with set hours so families with children could depend on it. It adds extra hours at the end of the month when food stamp benefits are used up.
Cadenhead is seeing everyone from recent immigrants to people in the service economy to seniors to a former mortgage banker, in a village where the median value of a house is more than $600,000.
"We realized that people were just plain hungry," she said.
Twitter: @eganga
How to help
Food Bank for Westchester: go to http://foodbankforwestchester.org and click on How to Help
Food Bank of the Hudson Valley: go to http://foodbankofhudsonvalley.org and click on Donate Now
Many individual food pantries also have ways to donate on their web sites. For those needing help, the food banks also have information on programs in your area.