Food Pantry Lines Lengthen, What’s Next?

There are many Cape May County residents who, through no fault of their own, find themselves waiting in line for food pantries to open. Could it ever happen to you or me? Yes, it could. In this economy, which is getting better or quickly souring, depending on one’s situation, anything can happen. It’s like the unbreakable Murphy’s Law: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
The church I attend is like many others in the county. It has a food pantry stocked by congregation members. On any given week in the Sunday bulletin is a call for needed items, canned pasta or vegetables, soups or something similar. There is an epiphany moment after the pastor announces how many were assisted at the Saturday food pantry. Last week, for example, there were 35 who came in search of food.
Multiply that 10 or 20 times, and you might get a slight inkling of how many people, around the county on a regular basis, seek food. Keep in mind, this is not gourmet fare, these are basic items to keep a family from starving.
At the Feb. 11 freeholder meeting, Sheriff Gary Schaffer gave his annual report. At one point he noted the average number of inmates in the Cape May County Correctional Center during 2013 was about 225 in a facility built for 188. That day there were 272 inmates. Plans are being finalized to construct a new jail near the old one.
Freeholder Director Gerald Thornton was puzzled. How, in a county that is losing population, 6,000 since the last census, could the inmate population keep increasing, he wondered?
Simple, Schaffer noted it’s a drug called heroin. That one drug is a major factor in countywide crime. Helping create the toxic mix – with sometime fatal results – is unemployment. Stir in a helping of addictive drugs, heroin being among the cheapest. Add in the need for money to buy the dope, and voila! You have instant crime and following it a need for incarceration.
Not all on unemployment are, or will become addicted to heroin or alcohol, but it’s possible. The idle brain is the devil’s greatest playground.
Applications for food stamps are up 23-24 percent locally, Thornton quickly added.
Do we see a yellow caution light flashing?
Blend more people in need with a reduction in food stamp funding from the federal level, and I foresee a very potent pot that could explode into something very un-American.
A woman I know sent an email last week that broke my heart. It was one of the times I truly wished I were wealthy, and could have written a check to give her. She, of course, is just another name to those who compile data about the unemployed who are being cut from food stamps. There may not be sufficient money in the broken federal treasury to feed all the hungry. When did it become the job of government to feed the hungry? That debate aside, the need is real. Stomachs are growling, and when that happens long enough to a sufficient crowd, history will chronicle some of the sad results.
What she wrote was telling about this dismal, seasonal economy of Cape May County. She is about to lose her home, certainly not because she wants to, but because she’s been without a decent, fulltime job since getting laid off from her former employer of many years.
She became acquainted with food pantries, and noted that the lines are growing longer and longer. More folks are just like her. They are solid citizens who had good jobs but they were squeezed out by the economy. Now they can’t even land a part-time job, although they’ve knocked on many doors.
She isn’t lazy. She wants to work. She is signed up for job training in a field that has many vacancies, certified nurse’s aide, or CNA for short. It certainly is not a glamorous job, but so necessary. Ask a bed-ridden hospital patient or nursing home resident. When Mother Nature calls and a bedpan is needed, if that call is not answered quickly, the CNA’s task becomes all the more gut-wrenching. But it is oh, so necessary. This is what that skilled lady is prepared to do in order to survive. To her credit, she is more willing than some to go out and earn money, and doesn’t expect it to simply fall out of the sky into her hands.
Training for CNAs does not begin until late March. It is doubtful her stomach can last that long, or that her bank account will remain in the black until then. In the meantime there are food pantries. They remain the last bastions of hope.
A couple times throughout the year, mostly around Thanksgiving, Chanukah and Christmas, mail carriers and Boy Scouts seek non-perishable food donations to restock dwindling food pantries in the area. You’d be surprised to see some of the donations received, broken boxes of cereal or pasta, some outdated. Then there are cans of vegetables and stew that look like they should have been tossed in 1965. Counter such “donations” (a.k.a. shelf cleanouts) with cases of instant noodles and freshly dated items, and you can see there are many good people who do care.
You’ve probably heard those who say unemployment insurance is just part of the greater problem. Without that program many who are not working would have to find work or starve, they state. The mindset of some: “Why work? The money is there, at least for the time being. I get more for not working than working, so why bother?”
When the entitlement runs out, hunger will start calling, and that’s when some people have been known to take radical action.
When they do such stuff, some get caught. When they get caught, they often spend time in county jail. It’s surely not a place I’d hope to find myself, but as Schaffer might attest, there was an increase in cold weather incarcerations. Desperate people do desperate things, always have, and always will.