Wanda English Burnett, Editor

One indication of a slowing economy is the growing need in food banks.

Carl Moore and wife Janet are the coordinators of the Fishes & Loaves Community Food Pantry at Osgood. Carl says the same pain others feel when they buy gas and groceries is felt at the pantry when they get their monthly supplies. He does believe the gas crunch is impacting the need at the food pantry locally. “People have to have gas to drive back and forth to work so they just let something else go,” he told the Osgood Journal.

He explained that the pantry gets about half of the needed food donated - the other half they purchase through monetary donations. “We are definitely feeling the crunch when buying these needed items,” he noted. “It costs anywhere from 15 to 20 percent more now,” he shared.

The pantry purchases about $18,000 in food each year. This is where the crunch is felt. The food prices have gone up more in the last nine months than in the past several years, according to the U.S. Labor Department statistics.

This coupled with the fact the pantry is getting ready to enter one of its busiest times, summer, does raise concern. “People have always been so good here,” Carl noted, saying the pantry has “been so blessed.” He knows times are hard for everyone with gas prices soaring weekly. “We always see an increase in the need for food in the summertime with children out of school,” he noted. He says children who might qualify for a reduced or free lunch during the school year are now home, still needing to be fed. While their parents are used to only providing one meal a day, this now increases to three.

The Fishes and Loaves Community Food Pantry is located on Walnut Street in Osgood (basement of the Osgood United Methodist Church) and is open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10-11:30 a.m. and again from 4-5:30 p.m. They serve anywhere from 135 to 150 people a month, primarily residents in the Jac-Cen-Del and South Ripley school districts.

Carl Moore, who has been with the facility for 15 years, said they have seen times when the supplies were low, but, “the community has always come together to help us out.” He noted they are always in need of volunteers to help. Anyone interested can call the Moores at 812-689-4328.
Bill Warren, who operates the Trustees Food Pantry at Osgood, noted that right now they are holding steady. He said they had the money and the storage to go ahead and buy large quantities of canned goods earlier this year. By doing that, they have saved money, first by buying large amounts, and secondly, the rising cost of groceries. “I don’t know what next year will bring,” he noted.

Warren said right now the numbers are holding steady with the pantry serving about 150 families monthly. They give away an average of 18-22 items to each family, all food. All of the monies allocated from various township trustees that have joined together to make this food giveaway a reality, goes toward food items only. Recently two churches gave monetary donations which were used to purchase soap, according to Warren. He welcomes other trustees to join them in the effort to make sure everyone in Ripley County has enough food to eat. The pantry is located at the County Fairgrounds Park in Osgood.

Whether the escalating cost of groceries is blamed on various weather events throughout the world, rising fuel prices, or lack of stockpiles of food supplies, the reality of it all is felt in the refrigerator and pantry shelves.