Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 30, 1995 TAG: 9503300060
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The lines of people, queued Depression-style waiting for a 3-pound block of processed cheddar or a 5-pound bag of dehydrated potatoes, soon will be no more.
The federal giveaway - called the Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Program - worked too well, program administrators say, succeeding in making good use of food surpluses but in doing so, emptying the cupboard. That cupboard now bare, Uncle Sam has no plans to restock it.
Across the country, agencies are shutting down their monthly, quarterly or yearly mass distributions of the food, supplied by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This month, Virginia social services departments and community service agencies who handled that task are making their final distributions.
``The program no longer has surplus food in it,'' said Corinne Gott, superintendent of the Roanoke Department of Social Services, which makes its last distribution today. ``After this week, it's dead and gone.''
The nationwide program has no money left this fiscal year for food purchases.
Those who relied on the program to tide them over between booklets of food stamps or limited grocery budgets say its absence will hurt.
``It's helped me get by,'' said Lisa Leonard of Roanoke. ``I've got six to feed in my house.''
For three years, she has come to the National Guard Armory in Southwest Roanoke, taken her place in line and waited for peanut butter, cheese or canned green beans.
The food comes in handy, especially when the children are hungry and there isn't much food in the house, Leonard said. Then, her specialty is a concoction of tomatoes, butter and macaroni, all USDA goods.
``If you've got nothing to eat, it'll do,'' Leonard said. ``I just hate to see my kids go hungry.''
The emergency food assistance program was initiated in the early 1980s, when the country was brimming with agricultural surpluses. The federal government, under then-President Reagan's direction, started giving away surplus food to help reduce federal food inventories and storage costs while helping the needy.
Surplus stocks quickly depleted. And changes in the farm support system made it less profitable for farmers to produce surpluses.
In 1988, through the Hunger Prevention Act, Congress began appropriating money to buy food for the program to supplement the dwindling surplus food supply.
But in the past five years, appropriations gradually have decreased. The total appropriation for the 1994-95 fiscal year was $65 million, down from $120 million in the 1993-94 fiscal year.
The welfare reform bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives last week proposes to combine the emergency food assistance program with two other programs - the Soup Kitchens and Food Banks Program and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program - to form one commodity distribution program, said Phil Shanholtzer, a Department of Agriculture spokesman.
Funding would continue for the emergency food assistance program, but for administrative costs only, he said.
``Most of these small local agencies distribute a lot of food besides that which they get from USDA,'' Shanholtzer said. The federal government ``will continue to provide administrative support to ensure that the whole structure stays in place.''
The emergency food assistance program itself though, "is dying on the vine," said Tom Nations, administrative supervisor for the Virginia Department of Social Services' food distribution program.
"This year, money to purchase foods has already been used up," he said. "And we don't expect any money to be appropriated next year for food purchases.
"But you never know what Congress might do. We here feel they probably will not resurrect it."
Any surplus foods left over from this fiscal year will go to food banks or other food distributing agencies. They will distribute food, as needed, to those agencies and departments that had been administering the emergency food assistance program.
An estimated 2.5 million food packages were distributed to households nationwide through the emergency assistance program each month. The program served 250,000 Virginians every three months.
The program filled a need, said Charlie Brown, who coordinates food distribution for the Roanoke Department of Social Services.
``Some people have come to me with tears in their eyes this week,'' Brown said. ``I didn't know that amount of food meant that much to them.''
Memo: Shorter version ran in Metro edition.