BY PHILLIP PINA
The Cincinnati Enquirer
With Thanksgiving less than a week away, food pantries and soup kitchens are scrambling to prepare for another busy season of giving. Already, the region has donated truckloads of food and clothing for Central American victims of Hurricane Mitch. The generosity of Tristate residents and businesses will be tested again as the need for food in Cincinnati continues to rise.
And the operators of at least one local food drive say they face a tough battle.
Each Thanksgiving, students at Moeller High School fill hundreds of boxes of food for the St. Vincent de Paul's Bank Street Food Pantry and other charities. Organizers fear the food drive may fall short this year after so much effort was put into helping the victims of Mitch.
"What happened with the food drive is it ran smack into a hurricane," said Bill Long, development director. Students filled two trucks earlier this week with food destined for Central America. Now, with less than a week to go, they are just beginning to focus their efforts on the Thanksgiving food drive.
Over the next few weeks, thousands of bags of groceries and scores of turkeys will be handed out to the needy. And soup kitchens are planning holiday meals for those unable to prepare their own.
"We've been fortunate to have groups of people who have consistently donated every year," said Mary Jo Holohan, assistant director of Our Daily Bread. The Over-the-Rhine soup kitchen said it has been able to keep up with demand, but is always looking for more help.
Several food charities said they are a bit behind previous years. Reasons vary, from people waiting for grocery sales to food distributors getting more efficient, having less waste to donate.
And demand for aid has grown each year, said Tina Osso, executive director of the Shared Harvest Foodbank in Fairfield. The need for aid has grown by an average of 18 percent each year, she said. There are as many as 60 food drives in schools and businesses going on to help support the holiday offerings of the FreeStore - FoodBank in Over-the-Rhine, spokeswoman Jean Kowalski said. Canned meat and turkeys are needed, she said.
But the giving cannot stop with the holidays, she said. "We are hoping people will hear that. We need help all year around. We always need food."
