U.S. charity has stumbled along with the economy. From food pantries on up, contributions have diminished, just when they're needed mostIt's called a food pantry, but a scarcity of goods is taking over the shelves. Despite the efforts of the nonprofit BedStuy Campaign Against Hunger, which runs the Brooklyn (N.Y.) pantry, there's no pasta, milk, or orange juice, and almost no meat. A few sacks of yellow onions represent the only produce, and a dozen or so packages of ham in a refrigerated cooler will be gone within hours, says program coordinator Tamara Dawson. The money ran out last winter, so there's no shopping to be done either.
In March, the pantry fed 5,500 people. By April, that number grew to 7,500. Some 800 others have been turned away in recent months. "I have people coming up to me asking me: 'What happened here?'" says the Reverend Melony Samuels, the project's executive director. This nonprofit, like so many others that serve social needs, is caught in the grip of a classic economic squeeze: As the economy continues to sour, the demands on social service organizations have increased at the very time that its supply of funding from donors is dropping.
Falling Way Short
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