The wave of people looking for help includes those across the financial spectrum, not just low-wage earners or the chronically unemployed, nonprofit directors say.
"The marginal people are no longer marginal; they've fallen off," said Cathy Holstrom, director of FoodLink, an Anne Arundel County charity. "We're helping people we've never helped before."
At the Baltimore North Cluster Food Bank, a "flurry of new families" came to seek help at the beginning of the summer, said Joan Patterson Laufer, the director.
Heritage Baptist Church in Annapolis has seen about 25 percent more people seek food this summer than last summer, said the Rev. Henry Green. And at Riva Trace Baptist Church in Davidsonville, about 80 families now come for food each month, up from about 20 families a month three years ago, said John Tatterson, a church elder who oversees the food ministry.
Emily Rowe, 67, a retired nurse from Annapolis living on a Social Security stipend, picks up free fruit and vegetables, breads, meats and cheeses from Riva Trace Baptist to help offset the rising costs of gasoline, food and utilities.
"A box of cereal costs three or four dollars. Even a loaf of bread is outrageous," said Rowe, sitting with her bags of fresh peaches and green beans at the church. "I didn't need this before, but now, with everything so expensive, this is a big help."
The surge in need has put a squeeze on food banks, which typically notice a slump in donations in the summer. And there have been fewer donations from large grocers, which often sell irregular items to discount chains, said Deborah Flateman, head of the Maryland Food Bank, which supplies numerous food pantries and soup kitchens across the state.
Food bank directors hope that back-to-school drives will restock their shelves. But if the economy continues its downward slide, they fear that they won't meet the needs of those who depend on them.
"We're in crisis mode," Flateman said.
Many of the state's dozens of nonprofits that help find housing, work and rehabilitation for people with developmental disabilities have struggled to cope as state and federal funding has fallen behind, said Laura Howell, executive director of the Maryland Association of Community Services, a statewide nonprofit that has more than 100 member agencies.
"It creates much more pressure on agencies to fund-raise in an economy that is struggling," Howell said.
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