April 29, 2008 Food emergency grows in Maine Play video

(Amy Sinclair, NECN: Portland Maine) - There's no siren blaring as this food rescue truck pulls up in front of Whole Foods in Portland, Maine.

But make no mistake, they are responding to a growing food emergency.

"If you have any food for the food bank please bring it to the front of the store."

Every morning, before the store opens, the staff culls anything that's less than picture perfect it amounts to 4-5 thousand pounds of food a week.

Brian: "it's perfectly edible food just not meeting quality standards. "for example you might have a pepper with a crack but it's a perfectly usable pepper.

This is just the first of several early morning stops for wayside food rescue.

Last year the non-profit collected a total of 1-point-2 million pounds of food which they donated and distributed to 73 soup kitchens, shelters and food pantries.

Tim '"We serve all of Cumberland county" "all the pantries and agencies huge spikes in elderly, single Mother's families"

More than a million pounds of food seems like an enormous quantity, but if you ask the folks volunteering on the front lines of hunger, it's not enough to meet the growing need.

Grace: "we're starting to see families and many new faces we're all talking about that a lot of new faces in here now.”

Outside St. Vincent's soup kitchen tears are never far from the surface.

As the food rescue trucks continues its circuit, the line is already forming

Wayside serves 800 to 1000 hot meals a day. with USDA donations down, they rely heavily on the food rescue program.

Susan: "Our numbers have increased 23 percent over 18 months and the demographic is shifting"

The program's director say in the last year, the working poor have started to outnumber the homeless population that's traditionally been served here.

Susan: 'we see people who are working uptown in an office they're working construction. They're coming in so they're families can feed the children. "it's quite alarming."

A bad economy is a double whammy for hunger programs, the need is increasing but donations are down because people who normally give don't have anything leftover to give to charities. So the small staff and army of volunteers are forced to their best in a situation they say is getting worse by the month.

Whether you have thousands of pounds of extra food, or a bumper crop of zucchini, they say every donation counts. So when the next mealtime comes around the people on the front lines won't have to turn anyone away.

NECN's Amy Sinclair reports.