Food Pantry supplies running low

With an unemployment rate that has jumped to 10 percent in recent months, and foreclosure rates the highest in the nation, Lee County is on the front lines of feeding the "new hungry."

The new hungry are folks who have never had to ask for help before, said Sarah Owen, CEO of Community Cooperative Ministries, Inc. They are former business owners, schoolteachers, volunteers and former donors to the organizations that they are now going to for help.

With more in need than ever before, food supplies at CCMI's Soup Kitchen and Food Pantry are running critically low as the organization heads into its busiest time of year.

In 2008, CCMI prepared and delivered 136,243 meals through its on-site Soup Kitchen and Meals on Wheels program. Total food consumption for 2008 was 133,048 pounds of food, 45 percent of which was given out as emergency food from the Soup Kitchen Pantry to those in need.

"We are seeing a drastic dwindling of food in our pantry, as well as the stores of food we receive from the Harry Chapin Food Bank," said Ms. Owen. "Due to the severe increase in demand, our supplies are running extremely low and if we don't get more donations, we will not be able to feed the increasing numbers of hungry in our community."

Ms. Owen is hoping the community will come forward to help. She is also sending out a plea to Southwest Florida's visitors and winter residents not to forget about the food pantry as they prepare to leave.

"Please don't throw away your unused food as you head home," she said. "Annually, we have two million tourists and over 60,000 seasonal residents. If each one of those individuals dropped off a can of food to the soup kitchen, we would not be faced with turning people away hungry."

Non-perishable food donations can be made daily to the soup kitchen located at 3429 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. A "wish list" of items requested include cornbread mix, cereal, peanut butter, packaged cookies and snacks, jelly, flavored rice bags and pasta, spaghetti and sauce, macaroni and cheese, handheld can openers, Ramen noodles, Ziploc sandwich bags, Vienna sausages, Spam, canned meats, pop-top cans of vegetables, chili, meats and fruit, as well as non-food items including diapers, bug spray, sun block and travel size toiletries.

For more information, contact CCMI at 332-7687.