Hunger in Howard County

      Reading Bita Dayhoff's letter to the editor in the Baltimore Sun on Monday about the increase in the use of the Howard County Food Bank.  It seems that the Food Bank has seen an increase in usage from 3800 visits in 2008 to over 22,000 last year.  About 50 % of the users are senior citizens living on fixed incomes.  This letter reminded me of an experience I had taking an elderly gentleman there when I was a Neighbor Ride volunteer.  Picking up this elderly gentleman at one of our senior citizen apartments at 10:30 in the morning and dropping him off at the Food Bank about 10:45 I noticed that people were already in line outside the door.  The Food Bank doesn't open until 1 pm.  I was a little concerned about how this gentleman would manage with the 2 hour wait because he was using a walker.  He casually reassured me that he had a seat on his walker that folded down so he could sit while he waited.  He said that if he didn't get there this early he might not get any food as the demand was so high in our County.  An elderly man sitting outside a food bank waiting for 2 hours to get food----not an image most of us would have of our high income County.
     Bita ended her letter with an appeal for donations and volunteers for the Food Bank and their community garden.  If interested in volunteering you can email agroves@cac-ho.org   Also consider starting a food drive with any organization to which you may belong.  How about it blog readers? Support this organization in some way.
 
P.S.
   There doesn't seem to be a link to Bita's letter so I have added a scanned copy it to this post.