(updated 8:40 am)

want to help?

 

Social worker Kelli Reed backed her sedan up to the bags of groceries on the lawn of Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church, which contained the makings for Thanksgiving Day meals for four families at the Head Start where she works.

Reed had a longer list of families needing help, but she felt lucky to get the food.

“All the food banks and everywhere I checked told me they had nothing,” said Reed, who had made more than a day’s worth of calls to find help for families she knows wouldn’t have been able to afford the turkey, much less the side dishes.

“This is the only resource I found for them,” Reed said.

The effort to clothe, house and feed the needy during a sour economy and in earlier-than-usual cold weather has left some local food banks and nonprofits working with nearly empty shelves. Others are finding their budgets are running out — even as some people are digging deeper to pitch in.

“It’s a time that everyone’s counting their own blessings, and you feel lucky to have what you have to share,” said Kerrie Brancazio, who organizes the Thanksgiving food give-a-way at Our Lady of Grace. This year, the church helped 120 families through agencies such as the Guilford Interfaith Hospitality Network.

Those who want to help are struggling in many of the same ways as the ones they want to help.

“If we hadn’t had a food drive over the weekend, we couldn’t have operated this week or next week,” said Eddie Lemons of the Blessed Table Food Pantry and Clothing Thrift Shop, a local eight-church effort to respond to basic needs.

The food pantry at Bessemer United Methodist Church has had twice as many requests daily in the past month. It’s made the charity, which requires an ID and limits return clients to the food bank, loosen its requirements.

“If you need it and we have it and we think you are legit, we let you have it,” Lemons said. “We gave out some bags today that wouldn’t have been approved. But people are hungry and people are out of work. It’s bad out there.”

Lemons knows his budget is close to running out.

“We’ve looked at that,” Lemons said. “We’ve contacted other churches, and they’re coming through with some money. We still believe in Matthew 25 — 'When I was hungry, you gave me food; When I was thirsty, you gave me drink.’ That’s what the Lord calls us to do for others.”

Recently, donations to the Greensboro Urban Ministry’s annual Feast of Caring netted more than the nonprofit could have imagined.

Yet, there’s always someone waiting for what’s coming in, said the Rev. Mike Aiken.

“We’re trying to put our fingers in the dike and the dam is breaking,” Aiken said.

At the nonprofit’s Pathways Center, 150 people are crowded into space for 100. Every morning, emergency assistance is packed with people, Aiken said.

“We talk about these big bailouts of corporations — we’re just trying to keep people from freezing to death on the street,” Aiken said.

The owners of BounceU Greensboro, an indoor playhouse with inflatable toys, normally holds a food drive at Christmas to help the Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina in Winston-Salem, a network of food banks across the state, providing food for agencies and charities to pass on to needy families.

But the business has already started its collection.

“We’re just middle income people and it’s hard for us — I caught myself thinking, 'If it’s hard for us, how is it for other people?’”said owner Julie Chapman, who offers a $2 discount off admission for people also bringing canned food.

Second Harvest donations are down 15 percent from the same time last year, said spokeswoman Erin Foster.

“Our partner agencies, such as soup kitchens and homeless shelters … they’re reporting from a 30 to 100 percent increase in families coming to them for food,” Foster said.

Emergency requests at local churches with emergency assistance funds are also at unprecedented levels.

At West Market Street United Methodist Church, requests for the same time last year are up 50 percent. On Saturday, the church gave out 320 turkey bags for a holiday meal to families whose names they got from Greensboro Urban Ministry, Washington Montessori School, and the Department of Social Services.

And still, they had a waiting list.

“There’s a lot of 'I lost my job’ or medical issues, and so they can’t work or no longer can work, or are between jobs,” said Elizabeth Montgomery, the church’s coordinator for outreach ministry.

“There’s a lot of underemployment, and it’s not all single moms. There are plenty of folks that are married and have kids, and they are working and they can’t seem to get ahead,’’ Montgomery said. “And if somebody gets sick, that can make the difference between them paying that electric bill and not paying that electric bill — and it’s more often than we think.”

On Saturday, Piedmont International Church delivered food to three families — and were able to restock one woman’s pantry in the process.

One of the families included a mom with five children and two nephews in the home.

The intent was to do something, anything.

“I just felt so blessed for the opportunity to give, and so touched by their gratitude for what seems like so little,” said Kari Townsend, one of the 10 church members helping to deliver the food.

That’s what kept Olivia Wyrick out in Monday morning’s cold loading the vehicles pulling up at Our Lady of Grace.

“You kind of picture in your mind that they’re going to be able to enjoy the same food that I have for Thanksgiving,” Wyrick said.

Contact Nancy McLaughlin at 373-7049 or nancy.mclaughlin@news-record.com