By Tristan Moran

For The Herald Bulletin

ANDERSON — In a long, narrow room lined on both sides with metal and plywood shelving, a few dozen jars of peanut butter and cans of green beans dot the mostly vacant spaces in the Salvation Army food pantry.

“We are a little bit empty right now,” said Rodney Morin, director of the pantry.     

Over the past year, feeding the hungry in Madison County has become a greater challenge because of an influx of people who are in need of assistance.

Food pantries in the area have served 30 to 40 percent more people this year, said Tim Kean, associate director of Second Harvest Food Bank of East Central Indiana. The food bank supplies more than 100 programs and agencies in eight counties, including Madison County.

“I know that many of those people visiting [food pantries] had jobs and recently lost them,” Kean said.

Rita Gross, a resident of Anderson who regularly visits the Park Place Church of God food pantry, said she and her family have had to make changes in their lives just to feed themselves.

“We have had to cut back on everything,” she explained. “If we need clothes, we go to places like Goodwill and don’t shop in fancier stores anymore. We try to economize — that’s all we can do.”

“I don’t get food stamps or anything like that,” said Robert Bohrer, another Anderson resident who visits the Park Place pantry. “Basically, I need groceries, and if it wasn’t for the pantries, God bless them, a lot of people wouldn’t be eating.”

New type of client seeking assistance

People who work in food pantries say that a new type of client has come out of the recession. Middle-class people who have never gone hungry suddenly need the system to feed their families.

“We are seeing more middle-class clients than before,” Morin said. “Most of the time we had people in poverty as our main clients. Now, with the economy, whether it’s employment, taxes or fuel, it’s starting to make everybody struggle.

“We are here to talk with them and let them know that everything is OK — that everybody falls on hard times.”