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Food Pantry May Grow Own Crops

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By Carl  Orth | The Suncoast News

Published: February 11, 2008

NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. - NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. - Shortages of food for the poor and hungry is becoming so severe a local food bank has contemplated raising its own crops.

The Volunteer Way, on Congress Street in New Port Richey, is scheduled to meet Monday night with officials of a church in the area which has several acres of land, Lester Cypher, CEO of the Volunteer Way, said today.

"I have never, ever seen it as bad as it is now," Cypher said today. The demand for food is escalating at the nonprofit food bank charity while supplies are harder to find.

A shipment of 40,000 pounds of food from a regional supplier arrived on a recent Tuesday and was all gone by noon the following day, Cypher said.

"That's something, isn't it?" Cypher remarked.

Cypher hopes to start growing produce and other crops on perhaps two acres of land using a portable irrigation system.

Volunteer Way gives free food to about 6,700 families directly from its Congress Street facility, according to the 2007 annual report released today. The organization also assists 65 other hunger relief ministries with free food and personal items.

"We distributed 6,500,000 pounds of food to families and other food pantries and soup kitchens, all this was given free of any fees," Cypher wrote in the report.

So far this year, Volunteer Way has run out of food eight different days, Martha O'Brien, the assistant CEO, observed.

"We're empty, completely empty since yesterday," O'Brien said today said about the Volunteer Way warehouse.

"The demand is growing," O'Brien said about the 10 to 20 new applications Volunteer Way receives each day.

People who lost their jobs have been turning to the nonprofit food bank, O'Brien observed.

Elderly people living on Social Security payments also have been seeking help. "They are being force to choose between medicine and food," O'Brien commented.

Both Cypher and O'Brien have noticed that people with jobs now are needing help.

The "working poor" more and more are showing up at the door of Volunteer Way, Cypher said.

Some people with two jobs still aren't earning enough and need help with food, O'Brien has observed.

Besides stocking various food pantries in the region, Volunteer Way also has been working with the Sheriff's Office to bring food to the needy, Cypher reports, as one of 15 aid programs.

The food bank also is an access site for food stamp applications. Medical supplies are donated to Good Samaritan Clinic. Diapers go to the West Pasco Pregnancy Center. Volunteer Way teams up with SPCA to donate free pet food and supplies to low-income families and homebound elderly.

For people who want to donate to the nonprofit group, call 727-815-0433, visit the facility at 7820 Congress, or contribute online at the Volunteer Way href=http://www.thevolunteerway.org> Web site.

"Keep us in your prayers," Cypher concluded in his annual report.

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