Demand for food aid surges

Maria Mendoza's office at Parkview Elementary School is lined with rolls of paper, a globe and a case of peanut butter.

A table is stacked with sacks of food. The learning center coordinator slides them into the backpacks of about 45 children before they head home for the weekend.

It's all part of the Utah Food Bank's Backpack Program, aimed at keeping children in poverty from going hungry when school breakfast and lunch — for some, the only meals of the day, anti-hunger advocates say — are not available.

"It's a lot of help for every one of our children and the families," mother of four Edith Hernandez said in Spanish, translated by Mendoza, as she and her daughter picked up food Friday.

The down economy has been tough on families already struggling to make ends meet. The number of Utahns receiving food stamps grew 6 percent between July and October alone, Department of Workforce Services numbers show. South Summit School District reports a 64 percent increase in the number of children receiving free lunch. And Ogden District reports a 58.5 percent increase in the number of students — now, totaling 699 — who are homeless.

"If you add all the stress of the economy, and homelessness on top of that," Ogden District curriculum director Greg Lewis said, "kids just aren't learning well."

Grocery prices along the Wasatch Front rose 7.9 percent between February and October, according to the Wells Fargo Consumer Price Index.

That and other cost-of-living increases have boosted food stamp use. Last month, almost $15.7 million in food-stamp benefits were issued in Utah, said Gina Cornia, director of Utahns Against Hunger. That's up 4 percent from the month before, "which is astonishing."

"I think the biggest factor is the economy. I think people are just feeling so squeezed, and where households would have said, 'We're not eligible' or 'It's not worth it,' they're at least taking the step to say, 'Let's see if we're eligible,"' Cornia said.

The same could be said for federal school lunch subsidies.

The number of kids receiving free or reduced price school lunch is being tallied by the Utah State Office of Education now. But rolls are rising in some areas.

Granite District, for instance, reports a 12 percent rise in free and reduced price school lunch recipients. Kim Carter, free and reduced price school lunch supervisor, links the rise to food stamp recipients, up 7.8 percent in Salt Lake County.