Pantries from Dedham to Plymouth to Brockton have similar statistics, and stark stories of men, women, and children in danger of going hungry. Some people have run out of unemployment benefits, while others are working two or three low-paying jobs and still can’t make ends meet, according to pantry officials.
My Brother’s Keeper, which delivers free food in Brockton and Easton, gets lots of calls from elderly and disabled people, as well as women with young children, according to manager Beth Sheehan. She’s also hearing, though, from a larger percentage of working people who have never asked for help before.
“Taking the calls, I can just tell how desperate people are,’’ Sheehan said. “One woman I talked to on the phone [told] me she had nothing to eat in her home except the ice cubes in her freezer.’’
At the food pantry in the Germantown Neighborhood Center in Quincy - where demand is up 40 percent from July, to 2,446 heads of households receiving aid so far this month - executive director Katherine Quigley said she is also seeing more first-time pantry users.
“It’s very devastating for them - you can see in their body language how uncomfortable they are,’’ she said. “I can’t tell you the number of individuals who say, ‘I can’t believe I’m here. I’ve always been on the giving end.’
“They’re people that can’t pay the gas, the electricity, the rent. [A lot of them] are doubling up [and living] with other family members. We try to be as delicate as possible so they don’t have to face any more humiliation,’’ Quigley said.
Keeping up with the demand is difficult, she said. “It’s very disheartening when you open the food pantry and [two hours later] you have to tell everyone in line that we’ve run out and can you come back tomorrow’’ after the next delivery, she said.
