Kenyoda Pullen usually donated to charities and volunteered at her church’s food giveaway on Thanksgiving. Last year, the College Park woman was on the receiving end.
Pullen and her husband lost their jobs and struggled to support their family using unemployment benefits and shrinking savings. A friend and fellow choir member at Cascade United Methodist Church suggested the Pullens be added to the list to receive a free turkey and other groceries.
“I was like, ‘Wow, I had become a recipient,’ ” said Kenyoda Pullen, who is still unemployed but working on a degree in early childhood education. “When I used to see Hosea Feed the Hungry, I would say, ‘Are there that many people who are hungry? Don’t these people have families?’ Now, I’m in that same category.”
While the Thanksgiving holiday is a time for people to share a meal and give thanks, more families for the first time have found themselves in need of help. And nonprofit organizations, with fewer resources available yet more mouths to feed, have worked hard to keep pace.
Cascade United Methodist Church distributed nearly 600 Thanksgiving food baskets this time — a record number and double last year’s output. The Center for Family Resources in Cobb County has supplied food for roughly 1,500 families, up 1,000 from last year. Hosea Feed the Hungry and Homeless estimates it could supply meals to as many as 20,000 people on Thanksgiving day, an increase of 5,000 in a year’s time.
Charitable groups have had to be more aggressive in seeking donations or simply stretch what food supplies they have. For fiscal 2010-2011, the Atlanta Community Food Bank reported that overall demand was up 34 percent; it distributes food to more than 700 nonprofit agencies in metro Atlanta and North Georgia. Monroe-based Angel Food Ministries, which sold boxes of food at discounted prices, closed its doors in September, leaving thousands with one fewer place to buy affordable groceries.
“The faces of the people who come have completely changed,” said Jennifer Thomas, a spokeswoman for Cascade United Methodist Church, which holds a food distribution program every Thanksgiving. “Many people on the list had probably never received any type of aid or assistance.”
Kenyoda Pullen’s husband, Juan, recently landed a part-time job with MARTA, but with two children to raise and bills to pay the family will accept a food basket again this year. On Monday, however, Kenyoda Pullen was at the Atlanta church, helping in the overall collection and dispersal of the holiday baskets.
She called recipients and let them know they had been selected to receive a Thanksgiving basket. She said her own experience made her more sensitive to their plight. She shared her story. She prayed with them.
Pullen talked to people who were struggling financially because of divorce or major illness. Others had lost jobs. With an October unemployment rate of 10.2 percent in Georgia, people still hadn’t found their way out of the last economic downturn. The state had the nation’s third-highest poverty rate — 18.7 percent — last year, according to Census Bureau figures.
Food donations have been down significantly at Hosea Feed the Hungry and Homeless, said Phillip Hogan, the nonprofit’s director of human services.
The Hosea Feed the Hungry event on Thanksgiving will be at the Georgia World Congress Center after 13 years at Turner Field. The nonprofit had to find added donations to cover the costs of renting the space and offering portable showers.
“The economy changed the face of everything,” said Susie Ivy, spokeswoman of Cobb County’s Center for Family Resources.
At Cascade United Methodist Church, a small chapel regularly filled up with people who waited until their names were called and they could walk out with a shopping cart stuffed with food.
Vannessa Bridges, 49, a single mother who lost everything in a March apartment fire, was among them. She hasn’t been able to work since she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004 and now has heart problems.
Bridges, who previously was employed in promotions and marketing for a record label and still volunteers at another food program and her daughter’s school, is one more person who has gone from helping the hungry to being one of them.
“It’s bittersweet,” she said. “It’s hard to be on the receiving end because I’ve been a giver for so long.”
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Rising demand
20,000: People that Hosea Feed the Hungry and Homeless estimates it could help today, up 5,000 from last year
600: Food baskets distributed by Cascade United Methodist Church, double last year’s number
1,500: Families receiving food from the Center for Family Resources in Cobb County, up 1,000 from last year
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