Sen. Brown seeking funding to feed families
NorthCoastNOW
LORAIN — Surrounded by boxes of food, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown on Monday pleaded for more funding to feed the poor.
At Brown’s press conference — staged at the Lorain Second Harvest Food Bank warehouse and attended by charity workers and volunteers — the Ohio senator spoke about the growing economic problems facing the country’s population and the increasing need for food aid.
In December, Brown introduced emergency legislation to provide $40 million to fund food aid programs across the country, and he is optimistic that it will pass this month.
“The House and Senate understand how important these food banks are. If we can spend $3 billion a week in Iraq, we should be able to spend $40 million for people who aren’t making enough to feed their families,” Brown said.
The rising cost of gasoline, combined with higher winter utilities costs, are making day-to-day life more difficult for low-income citizens, Brown said. Some families are forced to choose between making the mortgage payment and buying food, for example, and they have to rely on food assistance programs for survival, he said.
Juliana Chase-Morefield, executive director of Second Harvest Food Bank of North Central Ohio, cited the sharp increase in demand for food recently. Second Harvest Food Bank distributed a record 385,000 pounds of food in October, then broke the record again in December, with 462,000 pounds. The average monthly distribution is 280,000 pounds.
Chase-Morefield said that support from the federal government’s Emergency Food Assistance Program has declined steadily since 2004, from 1.2 million pounds to 600,000 pounds in 2007 or 18 percent of the yearly distribution. The funding Brown asks for in his legislation would be distributed through that program. As an example of the increasing economic problems in Ohio, Brown said that in Hocking County, 2,000 people — 7 percent of the county’s population — visited a Methodist Church in one day for pre-Christmas food handouts.
The Second Harvest Food Bank of North Central Ohio, operating in Lorain, Huron, Erie, and Crawford counties, distributes food through a network of 120 relief agencies including food pantries, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, and other charitable organizations. In 2007, they distributed 3.4 million pounds of food to more than 30,000 people.
Contact Sam Newhouse at 329-7155 or metro@chroniclet.com.
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Filed by NorthCoastNOW January 15th, 2008 in Local and State.
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