Facing Bare Cupboards in a Time of Feasting : Southern California’s poor are suffering as food bank sources dry up

On Thursday most Americans will give thanks at tables loaded with turkey, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pies and many other foods. Their most pressing question will be how not to gain too much weight or who will win the football game. But for a growing number of families, the questions will be: Will there be anything to eat today? Tomorrow? Next week?

Hunger is no stranger in this land of plenty, as staff writer Sonia Nazario reports in a Times series that concludes today, “The Hunger Wars: Fighting for Food in Southern California.” At hundreds of local pantries and soup kitchens, the cupboard is nearly bare.

The bad news prevails across the nation. Nearly half of 9,300 pantries and soup kitchens surveyed by Nazario have had to reduce the amount they give to hungry families. The Seedling, a pantry run by nuns in South-Central Los Angeles, can provide only a few days’ worth of groceries instead of enough for a week. In Glendale the Salvation Army must limit the number of visits a needy family can make to six a year. In West Covina the Community Food Bank restricts visits to five in a lifetime. But at least their doors remain open; in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, 20 nonprofit pantries have closed in the last 18 months.

Many poor schoolchildren in the West Covina Unified School District are too hungry to learn. Undernourished youngsters leave the classroom in tears because of stomach pains. The irony is that although the federal government subsidizes school breakfast programs for low-income children and the state government provides start-up costs, half of California’s schools--the West Covina district’s included--do not offer free breakfast. That’s shameful. The West Covina district refused to participate because those who dominate the school board believe serving breakfast at school wrongly takes on the responsibility of parents. (The district does participate in a government-sponsored lunch program.) The West Covina School Board is expected to take up this matter formally Dec. 13.

In the best of all worlds, parents do indeed provide for their children. But when they cannot, children should not be made to suffer needlessly. A child who has only a piece of bread for dinner, or maybe even nothing, cannot perform well in school.

In response to the Times report of hungry children, hundreds of good Samaritans have donated food or called to help. Others who want to help can contact the Southern California Interfaith Hunger Coalition, (213) 913-7333, extension 10; the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank, (213) 234-3030; the Foodbank of Southern California, (310) 435-3577; Love Is Feeding Everyone, (213) 936-0895. In Orange County, Food Distribution Center, (714) 771-1343; Orange County Community Development Council, (714) 897-6670. In Riverside and San Bernardino counties, Survive Food Bank, (909) 359-4757. In Ventura County, Food Share Inc. (805) 647-3944.

Unemployment is a major cause of hunger. So is the explosion of single-parent homes and divorce. Food stamps are one antidote, but many families resist because of the stigma or out of ignorance. To reach more families, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is waging a campaign.

The federal government also provides surplus foods to pantries and low-income families. But that program will be cut by two-thirds next year. The loss of government surplus food donations is exacerbated at food banks, which supply hundreds of local charities, by a huge drop in donations of salvaged goods from national food companies. Businesses, keeping a keen eye on the bottom line, are selling a larger percentage of outdated products or dented canned goods to stores that have found a ready market among poor families.

Thirty million Americans go hungry, 12 million of them children. Often their needs are not met by government, and, increasingly, the kindness of strangers--like Mae Raines, the retired teacher’s aide from South-Central Los Angeles who fills her truck with donated goods and feeds hundreds every week--is falling short. More people who have plenty of reasons to be thankful should share.