With gas prices and food prices increasing, and lost jobs in the Kokomo area, local food pantries are feeling the pinch.

Martha Koon, systems administrator for the United Way referral service, said food pantry coordinators are reporting increased demand, but fewer donations and less funding available to meet the demand.

She said changes in the food stamp system in 2007 have also contributed to the need, along with increased gas prices.

“People have come in saying, ‘I paid for gas to get back and forth to work. Now I need food.’”

She said in the first quarter of 2007, United Way provided food assistance for 86 households. In the first quarter of 2008, they provided food assistance for 321 households.

“It was a huge change. Now we’re getting calls from food pantries saying they’re running out of food. They don’t know how they’re going to make it to the end of their fiscal year.”

Koon said, for example, that The Salvation Army received its funding in August to last through the end of September, and “they’ve already called me and told me they have gone through that funding.

“It is gone, and they have another month to go before their fiscal year ends.”

She said The Salvation Army’s funding for the food pantry has not increased in three or four years.

Janet Quinn, social services coordinator for The Salvation Army, said most of her increased demand for help is due to the changes in welfare.

“A lot of our clients were not able to get recertified and they’re having to apply two or three times or more. In the meantime, they have nothing ... These people are real live people who are struggling to survive.”

In August 2007, she worked with 135 households needing food assistance. In August 2008, Quinn said, she had 209 households that needed help. Of those, 81 were asking for help for the first time that year, and 41 were asking for the first time ever.

Those households included 613 people.

She’s found it heartbreaking working with mothers who are having trouble getting food stamps.

“The mother is crying because she can’t feed her children, and then the children are saying, ‘Mommy, I’m so hungry.’ All the pantries right now are being hit hard. We’re doing our best to have as much available for our clients as possible. It’s really hard. Gas prices went up, which raised grocery prices. Nobody is getting raises, factories are closing, people are out of work. I have never seen so many families who are losing their homes, they can’t get their food stamps, they can’t get their Medicaid.”

Quinn said she’s already used the rest of her allotted money for her fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. Donations from the community garden have helped, she said, and some individual families have also donated produce from their gardens.

She said Weight Watchers is currently collecting food donations for the Salvation Army pantry, and the Kokomo Police Dept. is also helping.

“Their efforts are greatly appreciated and I’m sure they’re going to do an excellent job. We would be happy to receive from others as well,” Quinn said.

She added that donations of paper and toiletry items are needed in addition to food, because food stamps cannot be used to purchase those items.

Jeff Newton, pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church, the home base for Kokomo Urban Outreach, said the organization’s food pantry is doing “fair” right now.

“We have a lot of churches that help us. We’re not where we’d like to be,” he said, adding there has been a “huge increase in demand” recently.

He said the primary reason is the modernization of Indiana’s welfare program. During that modernization, some people’s food stamps benefits were suspended, and “when that happens, there’s no food.”

The pantry serves the neighborhood around the church, which includes Garden Square Apartments, and Newton said there is no grocery store nearby. Some neighborhood families have no transportation to a grocery store, and “if families do have a car, it’s hard to keep gas in the car.”

With Delphi announcing job cuts, Newton expects the need to become worse.

Newton said Kokomo Urban Outreach will provide four to five days worth of food to those who need it, and clients may receive food once each month.

The organization also provides cook outs on Sunday nights in economically-depressed areas of the city, so children have a good meal before going to school on Monday.

According to Koon, food assistance organizations all over Kokomo are seeing increased need. She said the Kokomo Rescue Mission served 104,000 meals in 2007, and is on target to serve between 110,000 to 120,000 meals this year.

Zion Tabernacle, which opened a food pantry in 2007, started with four to five clients per week, and graduated from 10 to 24 clients in a week.

All 13 food pantries open to the public in Howard County are still open, Koon said, but mostly can only provide a few days of food. Most have been able to give three or four days worth of food to clients before, she said.

The people affected include people in transition between jobs, those with food stamps cases pending, single parents and elderly people who only receive small food stamp allotments each month.

“You know they need more than a couple days of food. The ones that bother me most are the elderly who may only get $10 per month in food stamps. If they have to choose between buying their medications or buying their groceries, they’re going to buy their groceries.”

Quinn, from The Salvation Army, said she knows all the local food pantries would appreciate donations.

“If God has blessed you very well and you want to share those blessings, we would be very happy to receive them, and so would all the other pantries.”

You can help:

Donations of food or money can be made at any of these local food pantries:

• The Crisis Center 307 E. Defenbaugh St.

• Crossroads Community Church, 4254 S. 00 EW

• Grace Memorial Church of God in Christ, 1417 E. Delphos St.

• Hands of Grace

• Hillsdale United Methodist Church, 4893 East Road 100 North

• Kokomo Rescue Mission, 321 W. Mulberry St.

• Kokomo Urban Outreach, 1701 S. Locke St.

• Main Street United Methodist Church, 830 S. Main St.

• The Salvation Army, 1101 S. Waugh St.

• St. Lukes United Methodist Church, 700 E. Southway Blvd.

• St. Vincent DePaul Society, 208 S. Union St.

• Woodland Church of God 3401 S. Webster St.

• Zion Tabernacle, 404 W. Jefferson St.