Hungry Find Free Food Pantries Are Almost Bare

Thousands of hungry Americans are finding bare shelves at free food pantries around the country because the federal government has nearly run out of surplus flour, cornmeal, canned goods and peanut butter.

The Agriculture Department says its warehouses of surplus commodities are almost bare and it has spent nearly all of the $120 million budgeted this year to buy canned goods and other food for distribution to low-income Americans.

Some of the purchased food may still be in the pipeline, but anti-hunger activists worry that it will not last long once it is distributed to the states.

Last year, the program every month reached an average 2.5 million households.