BY SETH MANDEL
Staff Writer
Jamesburg JAMESBURG — With food supplies low but spirits high, the borough recently went from food stamps to “stamping” out hunger.
To combat the growing hunger problem in town, the local post office held its annual Stamp Out Hunger food drive, which arrives at a time when daunting numbers of area residents are in need of assistance.
Susan Schneider-Baker, coordinator of the Presbyterian Church Deacons Food Cupboard, said the food drive brought in 603 postal crates full of groceries, far better than other drives in recent years.
“The stuff that came in will hold us over until probably the middle of August,” Schneider-Baker said.
An additional 25 bags of groceries came in from last week’s Knights of Columbus food drive, and collections continue at each of the borough’s five churches.
The donations, Schneider-Baker said, came just in time for the busiest season.
“Especially during the summer months, I need so much kid stuff, because when they’re in school they at least get the lunch program, but come summertime, food stamps don’t increase, yet the demand is there,” Schneider-baker said.
Food shortages are much tougher on the kids, who are used to being provided with school lunches and snacks throughout the day, and don’t fully understand the situation.
“Kids have no idea that they’re poor until they find out they can’t have cookies, or Fruit Roll-Ups, or things like all the other kids in the world have,” she said.
The pantry typically serves between 79 and 83 families each month, but that number was down to 64 last month. Schneider-Baker said that drop is due to the increase of available landscaping jobs in high demand during the spring. She said the numbers will creep up again through August, before coming down once children are back in school.
But once the cold weather hits, residents will need to spend more money on winter clothing and utilities, such as heating, and will be back at the food pantry.
“So you’re in this constant tidal flow, where people are trying to do it on their own, but at different points in the year they need support as far as shifting their money toward school clothes, or high utilities, or they get sick and they have medical bills, and that’s when we kick in to help them fill those gaps,” Schneider-Baker said.
Mayor Anthony LaMantia in February began assembling a Human Resources Committee to evaluate the alarming growth in demand at the pantry over the last year.
LaMantia said this week the committee has been meeting every month to formulate plans to provide the necessary food, medical, dental and transportation services to residents in need. The committee has been making progress, but the problem continues to grow.
“It’s coming along, but it’s going a little slow, but that was expected because there is so much stuff going on,” LaMantia said. “We can’t start running, we have to learn to crawl first.”
LaMantia said the food pantry is back on its feet, despite nearly running out of food and supplies a few months ago, with the help of many of the borough’s police officers and local residents.
“We’ve got a lot of people that are starting to step up and help out,” LaMantia said.
Schneider-Baker said most of the pantry’s customers need only temporary help, especially single women who are able to get their children into day care programs and are able to return to the job market.
“The only ones that are with me forever are the seniors that are just not able to make it,” she said. “And it’s just a horrible crime.”
She said there is a terrible lack of affordable housing for seniors, and many cannot afford both rent payments and grocery bills.
“But there are only so many units, and there’s more people on the waiting list,” she said.
Schneider-Baker said one senior told her he was on a four-year waiting list.
“Do you know what can happen to a person in four years when their finances are struck so badly?” she said.
She said a discouraging number of adults cannot afford to move out of the homes they share with their parents –– a problem prevalent in many areas of the state.
“My heart is breaking for these people. I only want to win the lottery so that I could build something [for them],” she said. “I’m like the mother hen, I want them under my little feathers.”
But the efforts of the Human Resources Committee are having a tangible positive effect on the situation, Schneider-Baker said.
The borough’s summer street fair will include a health fair as well, the details of which are still being hammered out.
“It’s going to be so great to see all these services brought to Jamesburg,” she said. “What [officials] are doing is fabulous. I’m very pleased and proud of what they’re doing.”
Schneider-Baker said providing residents with medical and dental services, as well as affordable housing and transportation, can help curtail their need to visit the food pantry by allowing them to spend the extra money to feed their families instead.
“The important thing for people to understand is that hunger is the end result,” Schneider-Baker said. “There are a lot of factors that cause them to be at the food bank. The hunger –– them being at the food bank –– just means they don’t have the money for food because they have to spend it somewhere else.”