Food pantries brace for increase in hungry schoolchildren

Tribune:

Summer for schoolchildren should be a happy, stress-free season, but for many of the Chicago Public Schools' 405,000 youngsters, the next three months are likely to be a hungry time.

During the school year that ended Friday, about 84 percent of Chicago public school students received free or reduced-price breakfasts and lunches, meaning that with summer's arrival, nearly 342,000 children are no longer receiving the meals each day in their school cafeterias.

Given those numbers and the weak economy, local food pantries fear a need will appear this summer in Chicago like never before.

"It's definitely an issue that food pantries have talked about for a long time. But this year, it could be a more pronounced issue," said Bob Dolgan, spokesman for the Greater Chicago Food Depository, which reported a 36 percent increase in overall demand this year.
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The issue has been evident recently at the St. Columbanus Church Pantry, one of the city's largest, located at 71st Street and Calumet Avenue.

Looking out at the hundreds of people waiting to get food on a recent Wednesday, pantry director LaVerne Morris said the tough economy is already bringing in a softer crowd: families who find themselves needing handouts for the first time; families who are taking advantage of donations they once made themselves; families who, before recently losing a job or house, probably considered themselves middle-class.

"We all think this is a situation 'over there.' But it's not there -- it's on your block," said Morris, who noted that in the last year, the pantry has doubled the amount of households it helps each week, from 250 to 500, and that many of the families now come carting young children.

"This year, in this economy, a lot of kids are going to be hungry who weren't last year," she said while handing out bag after bag of produce, meat and bread.

Sonia Benjamin is one parent who worries about her four children getting fed over the summer, when they no longer get their free school breakfasts and lunches.

"It's going to be a challenge, but I'm going to make it some way," said Benjamin, 40, while waiting to get food at St. Columbanus.

Benjamin said she relies on the staples she gets from the pantry to pre- pare her children's favorite foods: macaroni, chicken, meatloaf.

"I could keep going," she said with a laugh. "I love to cook, and, of course, these kids love to eat it."