DISPATCHES by Hank Kalet: Putting food on everyone’s table

DISPATCHES by Hank Kalet: Our columnist reflects on the nutritional needs of the working poor and how local effects can help.

By: Hank Kalet
The statistics are startling.
   About 12 percent of American households in 2004 experienced some level of food insecurity — meaning they did not have enough food to sustain "an active, healthy life for all household members" — according to the federal Department of Agriculture.
   Blacks were hit hardest, with 23.7 percent experiencing some food insecurity in 2004, while 21.7 percent of Hispanic households also experienced food issues.
   And the figure for households headed by single mothers is particularly staggering: a whopping 33 percent, or one in three, according to the USDA.
   As an audience member at Monday’s meeting of the Monroe Township League of Women Voters, which focused on food insecurity, said: "It’s hard to comprehend."
   And it is, until you spend a couple of hours at one of the area soup kitchens or food pantries as the hungry stream in, looking for a little help to get them through the day.
   "Most people who ask for a hand really need it," said Bonnie Leibowitz, acting director of the Monroe Township Office on Aging and the township Food Bank, who also spoke Monday. "They’re not trying to take advantage. They really have a need at this moment in time."
   Susan Schneider Baker, director of the Deacon’s Food Cupboard of the Presbyterian Church of Jamesburg, agreed. She was the featured speaker and she painted a rather dark picture.
   One out of every nine New Jerseyans will go hungry at some point during the year, she said. And for almost any reason: the loss of an income in a two-income family, a health emergency, transportation problems that affect work, the loss of child care.
   Any of those things would leave even the most secure of us scrambling. But for many Americans, these kinds of crises result in a complete collapse of their economic fortunes.
   The loss of a car — especially in suburban New Jersey — can make getting to a job nearly impossible, or prohibitively expensive. Without a job, or with limited employment, the bank account dwindles or the balances on credit cards grow. Tough decisions have to be made and the fixed costs, the rent, the utilities, get paid at the expense of the food.
   "Food is one of the few flexible parts of a tight budget," David K. Shipler writes in his book "The Working Poor." "Rent is a fixed amount. Car payments are constant. The charges for electricity and basic telephone service cannot be compromised, negotiated, or trimmed. Bit the amount a family spends on food is elastic; it can be expanded or squeezed to fit whatever cash is left after the unyielding bills are paid."
   Over the years, we’ve done quite a few stories on families in need. The stories are not always the same, but there are enough similarities to let one stand as an example for the kind of issues the working poor face in central New Jersey.
   Take the case of a 39-year-old single mother from South Brunswick that we wrote about a couple of years ago. She was working for a company in Princeton, earning enough to keep food on the table and occasionally go to a movie or purchase a video game.
   She commuted by bus to and from South Brunswick with her younger kids who spent their days at the Princeton Family YMCA’s day-care center.
   When the company relocated its Princeton office to Boston, she lost her job and was forced to take a series of temporary jobs, but her choices were limited because she didn’t have a car and the only public transportation was the bus line along Route 27. She also had no one to watch her children.
   She received unemployment and some help with heating bills, but it wasn’t enough to cover food. So she had to turn to the South Brunswick Food Pantry for help with food.
   The pantry — like the Deacon’s cupboard, the Monroe Food Bank, Skeet’s Pantry in Cranbury and larger regional soup kitchens — relies for most of its stock and budget on the generosity of local residents and the business community.
   The South Brunswick pantry helps several hundred families over the course of the year, while Jamesburg, Monroe and Cranbury help several dozen a month.
   But there is a limit to how much help a small pantry or food bank can provide.
   That’s why the Anti-Poverty Network is fighting to maintain and expand programs for the poor. The state’s emergency food network, the organization has repeatedly said, is struggling to meet a growing need.
   To offset this, it says, the federal government needs to expand its nutrition programs and ensure that there is enough cash available for welfare recipients. In addition, more quality affordable housing is needed — affordable to those living at the bottom of the income strata.
   But given the budget woes at the state level and the lack of interest in poverty issues at the federal level, this kind of commitment is not likely to come anytime soon.
   In the meantime, all of us should be thankful that the local food pantries are here and ready to help.
   To contribute :
   Deacon’s Food Pantry of the Presbyterian Church of Jamesburg, 177 Gatzmer Ave., Jamesburg, N.J. 08831; (732) 521-1711.
   Monroe Township Food Bank, Office on Aging, 1 Municipal Plaza, Monroe, N.J. 08831; (732) 521-6111.
   Skeet’s Pantry at the First Presbyterian Church of Cranbury, 22 S. Main St., Cranbury, N.J. 08512; (609) 395-0897.
   South Brunswick Food Pantry and Human Intervention Trust Fund, lower level of the Municipal Building, P.O. Box 190, Monmouth Junction, N.J. 08852(732) 329-4000, ext. 7674.
Hank Kalet is managing editor of the South Brunswick Post and The Cranbury Press. His e-mail is [email protected]. He will be at the Gourgaud Gallery in Town Hall in Cranbury on Friday at 8 p.m. as part of an evening of poetry and music to collect food for Skeets and to raise money for the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen and Elijah’s Promise Soup Kitchen in New Brunswick.