Food pantries across the city are seeing longer lines, and those in the Bronx, the poorest urban county in the nation, are no exception.

As Sam Roberts reported last week, the median household income in the Bronx was $35,033, and nearly 28 percent of the borough’s residents — and 47 percent of its households headed by women with children — were living in poverty.

At the St. Francis of Assisi food pantry in Morris Heights, Ines Gonzalez, the pantry’s coordinator, has noticed an increase in the number of people seeking help. More recently, she says more of these people are unemployed and illegal immigrants. Every month, the pantry serves an average of more than 2,000 children, 2,300 adults and 400 seniors. Last week, the pantry served 282 children, 311 adults and 69 seniors, according to records she keeps for Catholic Charities and the Food Bank for New York City. Read more..

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What a great year. What a rotten year.

Okay, so maybe somewhere in between, even with the economy sliding into 2009.

It was that kind of year for the Bronx, with the highs hopefully edging out the lows. And let’s wish for it to be onward and upward in 2009.

Economy: Boom and bust

# On the upside, there was the new Yankee Stadium going full steam ahead - steamrolling over the local community in the process with a big loss of centrally located parkland - and the new Gateway Center mall to its south, both due to open in 2009. And the city finally chose a developer to turn the giant Kingsbridge Armory into a mall.

# The downside: the Bronx had the highest jobless rate in the state, registering 7.7% in October, while continuing to be the poorest urban county in the nation.
It was reflected in growing lines - with many turned away - at struggling local food pantries.

# A report in September by the Center for an Urban Future titled “Attack of the Chains?” found the Bronx has the fewest chain stores of any borough, with many not in the Bronx at all. Read more..

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REBECCA MUSCARELLO had long worked as a secretary, so she never imagined that at age 35 she would be left with no choice but to take her two children to a food pantry to get groceries. But like a growing number of Americans whose jobs have evaporated in a shrinking economy, Ms. Muscarello ran out of money and then food.

Since the spring, the number of people showing up hungry at food pantries and soup kitchens has surged, straining the capacity of many organizations in the vast, largely unseen and lightly financed network of volunteer emergency feeding operations. Many are newcomers who were reluctant to seek help until they had no choice. Read more..

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A Garden in the Bronx

How a small urban farm is helping one community eat well without leaving the neighborhood.

Along Third Avenue in the center of the South Bronx, the street is filled with McDonald’s and commercial fried chicken joints that fit neatly among rows of low-income apartments. Though the fast-food enterprise rakes in billions of dollars each year in the U.S., it has a particularly overwhelming presence in poor communities such as the South Bronx. The neighborhood boasts the highest rates of asthma and diabetes in the city, according to the city Department of Health’s 2006 Vital Statistics Summary. Growing up on greasy hamburgers and high-fructose soft drinks, residents often find themselves with little understanding of healthy eating and where to find better options.

Just around the corner, on 165th Street and Boston Road, there is something surprising for this area: A once abandoned lot overwhelmed by rubbish and drug dealers has been converted into a community garden called the Jacqueline Denise Davis Garden, or the JDD. This community garden is part of an initiative called Learn it, Grow it, Eat it, started in 2006 and funded by the Council on the Environment of New York City to educate teens about their health and their community.

“Community gardens are becoming a trend,” says David Saphire, the project coordinator of Learn it, Grow it, Eat it, or LGE. The venture was partially based on other urban farms that have experienced great success, such as Added Value in Red Hook, Brooklyn and East New York Farms in East Brooklyn.

While there are over 600 community gardens in New York City alone, Saphire says that LGE is one of the only initiatives that incorporates health education in high schools. The JDD, Wishing Well Community and the Model T gardens in the Bronx are all part of LGE.

In Saphire’s office, on the opposite end of New York City, located just across the street from City Hall, he explains how the idea developed. Saphire was teaching a nutritional program in local high schools in the South Bronx, touting healthy alternatives to the common fast-food pitfalls. Saphire, a self-educated nutrition guru who has been an environmental educator and researcher for the last 10 years, is a thin man, one who looks like he practices what he preaches.

Working in the South Bronx, it didn’t take long for Saphire to notice a gap between what he was teaching in his nutrition lessons and what foods were readily available to his students. The solution Saphire proposed: Teach the kids about healthy alternatives by having them grow their own fruits and vegetables. And, as an added bonus, make it free.

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Hunger crisis grows; food pantries can’t keep up with demand

An alarming number of food pantries and soup kitchens in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx are being forced to turn people away hungry, a new survey shows.

Demand for food pantries and soup kitchens has skyrocketed throughout New York City - growing by an estimated 20% this year, combined with an estimated 11% rise last year, according to an analysis conducted by the New York City Coalition Against Hunger.

Presently, 1.3 million New Yorkers - one in every six residents - cannot afford an adequate and consistent food supply and must rely on pantries and shelters, statistics show.

For its annual hunger survey, released this week, the nonprofit coalition polled 265 of the more than 1,200 charitable feeding agencies in the city.

The survey found that 76% of responding agencies in Queens said they didn’t have enough food to meet the rapidly increasing demand, and the case was the same for 67% in Brooklyn and 65% in the Bronx. By contrast, that figure was 36% in Manhattan and 29% on Staten Island.

Queens also had the highest percentage of responding agencies that reported having to ration food, cut back on hours of operation or send people away empty-handed.

In Queens, 67% of responding agencies said they’ve been forced to take such drastic measures, as well as 57% on Staten Island, 54% in the Bronx and 52% in Brooklyn. That number was just 30% in Manhattan.

Joel Berg, the coalition’s executive director, said the problems in Queens are partly the result of an inadequate social service system coupled with a fast-growing immigrant population.

But the startlingly high statistics citywide are evidence of the continued downward trend in the American economy, Berg said.

“We knew hunger was increasing when the economy was in good shape,” he said. “Now that the economy is taking a nosedive, we see hunger as one of the first indicators that there is a significant economic problem.

“When the economy gets a cold, lower-income people get pneumonia,” Berg added.

The troubling findings in the coalition’s report also reveal the devastating effects wrought by deep cuts in federal emergency food funding. President Bush has slashed discretionary spending for emergency food by 76% since 2002, including a $12 million cut this year, Berg said.

For people on the front lines in the battle against hunger, such significant losses in funding lead to painful and heartbreaking consequences.

“It’s been insane how much the resources have dropped,” said Christy Robb, director of the Hour Children Food Pantry of Long Island City, which serves several food pantries in the area.

SOURCE: NY Daily News

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