Jane Williams’ gloved hand latched onto a piece of turkey meat, tore it from the bone and chucked the lump of poultry into another pan.

Around her, a dozen volunteers hustled in the Kokomo Rescue Mission’s kitchen last week as they prepared Thanksgiving dinner for the mission’s increasing number of clients.

Volunteers and staff from Kokomo Urban Outreach expect to serve turkey and all the fixings to up to 2,500 people — about 5.5 percent of the city — this year. Last year, the mission served almost 1,000 fewer meals for the holiday.

“We’re seeing faces we haven’t seen in four or five years,” Williams said, noting that there has been a large increase in younger people coming into the mission’s dining room.

Area food pantries and soup kitchens are heading into their busiest time of the year with Thanksgiving and Christmas approaching.

As Howard County’s unemployment hovers around 12.5 percent, a steady increase in demand and cuts in funding and donations have made it a challenge for some dining rooms and pantries to stay stocked on supplies for the holidays.

In and Out

Lafayette-based Food Finders Food Bank Inc., which distributes to more than 150 agencies in more than a dozen Indiana counties, including Howard County, has reported a total increase in demand of more than 40 percent since last year.

Katy Bunder, Food Finders’ executive director, said the largest increase in demand has been in Howard County.

The increase comes in a year when the group, which serves the Kokomo Rescue Mission and 27 other Howard County clients, has experienced a drop in donations and cuts in allocations from the United Way, its primary financial supporter for operating costs.

“The biggest problem is that we have worked very hard to get enough food, and it doesn’t last,” Bunder said. “It goes out the door so much faster than we’re used to.”

Food Finders has stepped up collecting donations. But collections from one of its largest drives, which aims to collect at least 120,000 pounds of food, are almost gone before the drive ends, Bunder said. The drive began Oct. 10 and ends Wednesday.

“We have tried to do extra drives, but I feel like everybody’s feeling pinched by the economy,” she said. “So our drives haven’t been as successful as in the past.”

But the shortage of donations hasn’t stopped the organization from planning to distribute an expected 4 million pounds of food this year, including 2,000 turkeys for Thanksgiving.

Unexpected ‘Blessings’

The Kokomo Rescue Mission has seen a 14- or 15-percent increase in dining room clients this year over last.

But the organization has been unexpectedly “blessed” because it has received just as many donations as previous years, despite the economy, said Bebe Dorris, director of development for the mission.

The total number of donors has dropped, she said, but the remaining donors are giving more.

“The people who [were] right at the edge of having enough money to give” have stopped donating, she said. A smaller amount of people are giving more “because they really empathize with people that are in trouble, that lost their jobs. Just about anybody can see these days ‘It can happen to me.’”

The mission has received about 150 turkeys for Thanksgiving.

Similar to the donation trends throughout the year, a few donors made up a large portion of the total donations.

One-third of the turkeys came from a single donation from Howard Regional Health System.

Sherry Polito, the manager of the hospital’s Cardiac Catherization Lab, said she sent out an e-mail to the hospital’s staff, hoping to get at least 25 turkeys. But she received a surprising response, and within a few days, she had as many turkeys as she could handle.

“It’s been a wonderful journey,” Polito said. “... I still had people calling me [last week]: ‘Do you still need money?’”

Williams, the food service director for the Kokomo Rescue Mission, said the kitchen has enough turkeys for Thanksgiving, but it was in short supply of ingredients for many of the side dishes. The mission needs No. 10-sized cans of corn and green beans, onions, celery, butter and, especially, instant potatoes.

More to Come

Once Thanksgiving passes, local food pantries expect another increase in demand with Christmas.

Jeff Newton, the director for Kokomo Urban Outreach, said the agency has about 1,000 clients per month. But more families will come in for food once schools are out for their winter breaks and parents need to feed their children all their meals.

The organization has partnered with Urban Outreach for 10 of its 13 Thanksgiving dinners around the city.

Urban Outreach expects to have plenty of food for the holidays, Newton said, but it is expecting an annual increase in business during January and February.

“People will not have any money,” he said. “They’ll spend it during the holidays.”

It is doubtful the demand will go down any time soon, Newton said. Urban Outreach expects about a 25 percent increase in demand next year.

“It’s going to get worse because a lot of folks receiving unemployment are about to run out,” he said. “Then it will be another wave of people having difficulty securing food.”

• Daniel Human is a Kokomo Tribune staff writer. He can be reached at 765-454-8570 or at daniel.human@kokomotribune.com.