But coordinators hope for a food donation windfall
By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
The cavernous warehouse that serves as the Mercer Street Friends Food Bank, located in the Enterprise Park industrial office park near the West Trenton train station, was nearly empty Monday morning.
A few boxes of frozen food were stacked at the back of two freezers that should have been filled with frozen chicken and other foods. The shelves in the warehouse also should have been full of canned vegetables and boxes of cereal, but were practically bare.
But if the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) has its way, those freezers and shelves will be brimming with food after Saturday’s annual “Stamp Out Hunger” food drive, said Sharon Roman, who is coordinating the union’s effort in Mercer County.
The Mercer Street Friends Food Bank collects food and then distributes it to groups as diverse as the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen, Lawrence Neighborhood Service Center, HomeFront, Catholic Charities and the Crisis Ministry.
The letter carriers are asking postal customers to put out nonperishable food items, such as canned meat and fish, canned soup, juice, pasta, rice, vegetables and cereal, outside the customers’ mailboxes before the mail is delivered Saturday, Ms. Roman said.
”If everybody put out one or two cans of food, it would be good,” Ms. Roman said. “Some people put out bags of food, which is great. Just put it on the doorstep, and we will take care of it from there. We get cooperation from the United States Postal Service, but it is (NALC’s) function.”
Volunteers, including letter carriers and members of community organizations, will gather the food and take it to the Mercer Street Friends Food Bank warehouse, Ms. Roman said. Last year, the group collected about 300,000 pounds of food in Mercer County, she added.
The letter carriers union began the effort in 1991 as a pilot program in 10 cities. It proved so successful that efforts were made to expand it into a nationwide drive. The first national drive occurred in 1993, Ms. Roman said.
Ms. Roman visited the Mercer Street Friends Food Bank on Monday morning, and expressed surprise at the lack of food on the shelves. She said she was “shocked.”
Phyllis Stoolmacher, director of the Mercer Street Friends Food Bank, explained that the cupboards are bare because the nonprofit group has not received as many donations lately as compared to previous years — yet the demand for food is growing.
”This is so depressing,” Ms. Stoolmacher said Monday morning. “We should be flush with food. This is the worst I have seen it in the 20 years I have been here. I have my fingers crossed. I hope the whole place will be filled up with food (after Saturday’s food drive).”
”We serve as a clearinghouse,” she said of the Mercer Street Friends Food Bank. “Our role is to provide food to charities in the area and to ensure they have enough food. When our food supply is diminished, it has a ripple effect (on the charities that depend on the food bank).”
Saturday’s NALC food drive is important because the Mercer Street Friends has learned that it won’t be receiving as much food from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s commodities program. The group will be getting about half as much food from the commodities program in the next six months than it would normally receive, she said.
The Mercer Street Friends Food Bank also receives food from retailers, growers, packers, manufacturers and processors, Ms. Stoolmacher said. But the group is receiving less food from those sources because they can sell it on the secondary market to places such as dollar stores, she said.
”Everyone is feeling the pinch when they go grocery shopping and then fill the car with gas, but it becomes a seriously difficult choice for people who bring home low salaries,” Ms. Stoolmacher said.
”When you have food, the car, rent, the utility bills — what’s going to ‘give’ is going to be food,” she said. “We see significant numbers of working families and senior citizens going to the food pantries for the first time in their lives.”
The summer is hard on families — especially ones whose children receive breakfast and lunch at school, she said. The increasing cost of food now is putting a burden on those families, Ms. Stoolmacher added.
It means meals are being given up and those meals people are getting are less nutritional, Ms. Stoolmacher said. The portions are going to be smaller, the children will be hungry and “that’s the bottom line,” she said. That’s why the timing of the NALC food drive is so important, she said.
”We need tuna, salmon and canned fruits and vegetables, not pie filling,” Ms. Stoolmacher said. “(But) we are grateful for all donations. We hope this will get us through the summer.”
For more information about the “Stamp Out Hunger” food drive, visit www.helpstampouthunger.com.