Kitchens And Food

It started out as a Saturday morning hobby. Jim Dasher, owner of 100 acres in Worthington Valley outside Glyndon, would spend a few hours each weekend growing vegetables on a small plot behind his home. He figured he would give whatever food he could cultivate to area soup kitchens and emergency food banks. He knew it wouldn't be much, but it would be something. Over time, his friends started coming to help. Then word spread and more helpers would come. The plot became acres, and in 1993 a nonprofit agency built around growing fruits and vegetables for shelters and soup kitchens in the Baltimore region was born.

A study of hunger in Maryland shows that the number of people relying on soup kitchens and food banks has increased by about 10 percent since 2001, with about 50,000 residents receiving some form of emergency hunger-relief services each week. "The news is that we haven't done anything to help these people," said Bill Ewing, executive director of the Maryland Food Bank, which participated in a national survey of hunger by America's Second Harvest, a network of food banks and organizations that serves hungry people across the country.

Demand at soup kitchens and food pantries in Central Maryland grew for a third consecutive year, forcing some facilities to turn hungry people away, according to a survey released yesterday by the Maryland Food Committee.It was the first time in the three years of the survey that soup kitchens and food pantries reported turning people away."This year, the picture is really much more somber and sobering," said Linda Eisenberg of the Maryland Food Committee in a news conference at SS. Stephen and James Lutheran Church, one of several soup kitchens in South Baltimore.

It started out as a Saturday morning hobby. Jim Dasher, owner of 100 acres in Worthington Valley outside Glyndon, would spend a few hours each weekend growing vegetables on a small plot behind his home. He figured he would give whatever food he could cultivate to area soup kitchens and emergency food banks. He knew it wouldn't be much, but it would be something. Over time, his friends started coming to help. Then word spread and more helpers would come. The plot became acres, and in 1993 a nonprofit agency built around growing fruits and vegetables for shelters and soup kitchens in the Baltimore region was born.

This frigid Canadian air isn't helping Baltimore's needy and hungry families. Area soup kitchens are serving 19,000 people a week, a 30 percent increase. Yet donations have been diminishing. This combination of too many hungry folks and too little aid has forced some soup kitchens to cut back on their portions and pantries -- running low on food -- to reduce their handouts.Not only is the weather freezing, but so is the economy. More and more people are out of work. Some single parents cannot make ends meet even working three part-time jobs.

The sixth annual Bags of Plenty campaign, a food and cash drive held every holiday season, starts today.The Maryland Food Committee, which conducts the campaign, hopes to gather 425,000 pounds of food and raise $150,000 in donations by Dec. 14, a slight increase over the 408,000 pounds and $135,000 collected last year.Today, a paper bag has been included in every edition of The Evening Sun and The Sun distributed in the Baltimore metropolitan area. The bags can be filled with non-perishable food items, such as canned meats and vegetables, and dropped off at city fire stations, Giant Food Stores and Provident Bank branches.

Suburban communities are driving the increased demand at soup kitchens and food pantries in the Baltimore metropolitan area, according to a study released yesterday by the Maryland Food Committee.It was the fourth year in the row for the study -- and the fourth consecutive year that demand went up. Overall, more than 92,000 people sought hot meals or bags of groceries last month, up from almost 79,000 in October 1992. Soup kitchens, which serve hot meals on the premises, reported a 16 percent increase, while pantries, which provide nonperishable items to go, saw a 20 percent jump.

It doesn't take an official survey to show that there are more hungry people than ever in Maryland; a quick glance at the long lines outside any soup kitchen ought to suffice. Nonetheless, recent statistics confirm that Maryland's food providers are under tremendous new strains; some are serving double the number of people they fed last year.The reasons for the increase are many. Chief among them are workers who have been laid off because of the national economic downturn and are finding their savings won't stretch far enough.

VOLUNTEER Rose Kalka says she became tired of hearing about hunger ''everywhere I went. So last winter I volunteered to the Maryland Food Committee.''I've never been hungry, unemployed or unable to support myself, and I'm lucky. Volunteering is my way of helping those who can't help themselves,'' says Kalka, who works evenings at the Cultured Pearl Cafe in the Hollins Market area.She gives one day a week to MFC, doing office work or mailings, ''whatever they want me to do.'' She was active in the recent RSVVP fund-raiser during which 260 area restaurants gave 10 percent of one evening's proceeds to MFC.The Maryland Food Committee is a non-profit advocacy organization formed in 1969 by local teachers, physicians and religious leaders to address chronic hunger.

ATTENDANTS AT Maryland's first "hunger summit" today hope to begin mapping a route to bridge two islands that are moving in opposite directions: hungry people and government aid.Gov. Parris N. Glendening, social service workers and others are to gather at the University of Maryland Baltimore County with the aim of lifting hunger higher on the public agenda and also to discuss the impact of malnutrition on health care and education.Many operators of Maryland's 600 soup kitchens and food pantries -- consider there were only 50 such facilities in the state a decade ago -- say even they have been startled by the spike in demand.

Bags of Plenty is under way again.For the 13th year, the Maryland Food Bank and Maryland Food Committee are appealing for money and nonperishable food to help more than 20,000 needy people who eat daily at soup kitchens and food pantries around the state."

THE DEBATE about Our Daily Bread -- the largest soup kitchen in Maryland -- is not about whether to serve the hungry or hide them. It is not about rich versus poor. It should not be a battle between Baltimore's downtown business establishment and social service providers.The problem is that the emergency food operation of Associated Catholic Charities now serves about 900 people a day, seven times as many as when it began in 1981 out of a storefront on West Franklin Street. Its impact on the surrounding neighborhood and the nearby Charles Street retail corridor, struggling to regain its former luster, has grown worse, even in the few years since the operation expanded into its impressive $1.1 million brick building with Palladian windows.

Continuing a trend, emergency food providers served 21.2 percent more people statewide and almost 25 percent more people in Central Maryland last month than they did a year ago, the Maryland Food Committee said yesterday.In its annual survey, the committee said 204 soup kitchens and food pantries throughout Maryland said they served 159,228 individuals and families during October, up from 131,390 in October 1995.The providers noted several causes, said Mat Harrington, who, with another committee staffer, Kate Wulff, conducted the survey.

EULOGIES for John A. Cade, the late Republican leader in the Maryland Senate, portrayed a citizen whose philosophy of self-reliance did not overlook the fact that people can fall through the cracks.It is a theme on which Marylanders should reflect as the 10th annual Bags of Plenty campaign begins. Folks can load up a bag or more of non-perishable foods, such as pasta, peanut butter, canned vegetables or baby formula, and leave them in marked bins at Giant Food stores or Baltimore fire stations through Dec. 6.Or, they can send contributions to Bags of Plenty, P.O. Box 75164, Baltimore 21275-5164.

When Sara Eisenberg, executive director of the Maryland Food Committee, came to the group 13 years ago, Maryland had 50 emergency feeding programs. Today more than 600 soup kitchens and food pantries operate in the state."

ATTENDANTS AT Maryland's first "hunger summit" today hope to begin mapping a route to bridge two islands that are moving in opposite directions: hungry people and government aid.Gov. Parris N. Glendening, social service workers and others are to gather at the University of Maryland Baltimore County with the aim of lifting hunger higher on the public agenda and also to discuss the impact of malnutrition on health care and education.Many operators of Maryland's 600 soup kitchens and food pantries -- consider there were only 50 such facilities in the state a decade ago -- say even they have been startled by the spike in demand.

EULOGIES for John A. Cade, the late Republican leader in the Maryland Senate, portrayed a citizen whose philosophy of self-reliance did not overlook the fact that people can fall through the cracks.It is a theme on which Marylanders should reflect as the 10th annual Bags of Plenty campaign begins. Folks can load up a bag or more of non-perishable foods, such as pasta, peanut butter, canned vegetables or baby formula, and leave them in marked bins at Giant Food stores or Baltimore fire stations through Dec. 6.Or, they can send contributions to Bags of Plenty, P.O. Box 75164, Baltimore 21275-5164.

Just as the corporate and government landscapes don't resemble what they looked like a few years back, the effort to stem hunger in this country is a markedly changed operation, too.In 1980, less than 50 soup kitchens and pantries dotted Maryland. Today, there are nearly 600. Food collection drives, once confined to Thanksgiving week, are now held by churches and synagogues year-round. Area soup kitchens and food pantries, once temporary set-ups, now stay open most of the week to satisfy mounting demand.

Suburban communities are driving the increased demand at soup kitchens and food pantries in the Baltimore metropolitan area, according to a study released yesterday by the Maryland Food Committee.It was the fourth year in the row for the study -- and the fourth consecutive year that demand went up. Overall, more than 92,000 people sought hot meals or bags of groceries last month, up from almost 79,000 in October 1992. Soup kitchens, which serve hot meals on the premises, reported a 16 percent increase, while pantries, which provide nonperishable items to go, saw a 20 percent jump.

More than 11 percent of Maryland's children go hungry in any given month, according to a national study issued yesterday.And local advocates say the situation worsens during summer months, when children no longer get free or subsidized meals in school cafeterias.An estimated 134,000 children in Maryland go hungry for some period of time, according to the study issued by the Tufts University Center on Hunger, Poverty and Nutrition, which is located near Boston.According to the study, 11.2 percent of Maryland children are afflicted by hunger, much better than the national average of 18.3 percent, and better than all but three states -- Alaska, Connecticut and New Hampshire.