Feeding those in need gets tougher

<p>Pearl Beck's grocery list is bigger than most: She buys food for 39 families who every Saturday get free groceries at her Santa Rosa church, Greater Power House.</p><p>As the cost of gas and food skyrockets, Beck is stretching her $100-a-week budget even further at the Redwood Empire Food Bank, where fruits, vegetables and some breads are free and other items cost just 18 cents a pound.</p><p>"It's just getting harder," said Beck, 64, a volunteer at the church. "We're too small to feed any more families."</p><p>Shoppers nationwide are seeing the largest percentage spike in food costs in 18 years. Low-income families are bearing the brunt of rising prices while local food programs are straining to feed more mouths.</p><p>In the past year, an additional 3,000 people have turned to programs run by Redwood Empire Food Bank and its partners, said David Goodman, executive director.</p><p>The food bank feeds 50,000 people in the Sonoma County each month with 11 million tons of food funneled annually through its programs and 130 nonprofits. Its budget -- the bulk of which is from donations -- has been growing by about $250,000 each year, and is about $3.3 million this year, Goodman said.</p><p>It may sound like a lot, but it's not nearly enough, he said.</p><p>It's only May, and the food bank already is 17 percent over its $144,000 budget for delivery truck fuel, said Don Lindsay, operations director.</p><p>The cost of regular gasoline last week finally topped the dreaded $4-a-gallon average statewide and in Santa Rosa, where the cost of diesel neared $5 a gallon.</p><p>"We're going to need to raise more money or we're going to bring in less food next year because the cost of food is not going to change," Lindsay said.</p><p>The consumer price index for food rose 5.9 percent in April over last year, the largest jump since 1990, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.</p><p>For low-income families, stress at the pump and grocery checkout can mean sparser meals, Goodman said.</p><p>"When people go to the gas pump and watch that dial roll over, there goes breakfast lunch and dinner. People are living on the edge," he said. "There's food insecurity and hunger, and that means people skipping meals and eating an unhealthy, inadequate diet."</p><p>Poor nutrition can lead to higher rates of obesity and diabetes, especially in low-income communities with less access to grocery stores and fresh produce stands, according to a study published in May by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and advocacy groups.</p><p>Iron deficiency also is a problem stemming from a poor diet, said Barbara Graves, director of the Sonoma County health department's prevention and planning division. The county's rate of childhood anemia is already among the highest in the state, with 19 percent of Latino children diagnosed with anemia, according to a county health study.</p><p>"The issue with rising food costs is that often the foods that are the most unhealthy for us are the ones that are most affordable," Graves said. "Low-income families are forced into choices they would rather not make -- it's a tough situation."</p><p>And it's not just a Latino issue in Sonoma County. In the 2000 Census, a little more than half of the approximately 47,000 residents living under the federal poverty line were white.</p><p>On Friday, dozens of mothers and children lined up in southwest Santa Rosa to receive bags of broccoli, zucchini, carrots and jugs of orange juice from the Redwood Empire Food Bank's Megan Furth Harvest Pantry truck.</p><p>Each week the pantry serves about 450 families with young children who live in areas identified as having high rates of anemia.</p><p>Every little bit helps, said 19-year-old Lily Vidrio of Santa Rosa, who received a bag of vegetables. She's a single mother and also receives WIC, a federal grocery supplement for women, infants and children.</p><p>Despite rising food costs, the average monthly amount California residents receive through WIC has dropped over the past five years, down to $36.81 in 2007.</p><p>That's about how much Vidrio gets a month. She uses it to buy milk, eggs and cheese.</p><p>"I just buy less food now because of the cost," she said with a shrug. "Right now, it's enough. But if it keeps going up and up -- then, I don't know."</p><p>That's a challenge Alfonso Alarcon, coordinator of the Harvest Pantry, is working to address. He said a lot of mothers tell him the cost is now too high for vegetables.</p><p>"They don't have enough money and jobs, the economy is weak," he said, though those problems are no longer just felt by low-income residents.</p><p>"It's everybody," he said.</p><p>You can reach Staff Writer Shadi Rahimi at 521-5280 or shadi.rahimi@</p><p>pressdemocrat.com</p>