Holly Nunn/The Gazette The food pantry at Laurel Advocacy and Referral Services has seen an influx of food during the holiday season. The rest of the year, say employees of the non-profit, half the shelves are empty.

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Holly Nunn/The Gazette Laurel Advocacy and Referral Services distributed more than 200 bags full of turkey, pumpkin pie, and other Thanksgiving food Saturday. Most of the food was donated from local organizations and food drives.
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Holly Nunn/The Gazette The food pantry at Laurel Advocacy and Referral Services has seen an influx of food during the holiday season. The rest of the year, say employees of the non-profit, half the shelves are empty.

Holly Nunn/The Gazette The food pantry at Laurel Advocacy and Referral Services has seen an influx of food during the holiday season. The rest of the year, say employees of the non-profit, half the shelves are empty.

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Laurel Advocacy and Referral Services handed out more than 200 bags Saturday, each packed with a turkey, pumpkin pie, and jars of cranberry jelly and green beans.

The scene was totally unfamiliar to Taryn Gauthier, an intern at the nonprofit, which runs a food pantry as part of its services to low-income Laurel families.

“When I started working here, the shelves were almost empty,” said Gauthier, a student at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. “Now I see what it’s like when they’re full.”

Food donations have been flooding into LARS’s food pantry in the last few weeks, as they usually do around the holiday season, said LARS Executive Director Nancy Graham.

“This is the general pattern,” said Graham. “We get a lot of donations starting around Thanksgiving and then it slows way down the rest of the year.”

Financial assistance to LARS, which serves more than 2,000 individuals each year, also has come at a slower pace as grant money from programs like the federal Emergency Food and Shelter Program, which supplies money to organizations that feed the hungry and homeless, has been cut from government budgets. LARS saw a 30 percent reduction in funding originating from the federal government, Graham said.

LARS has been serving the homeless and those in danger of becoming homeless in the Laurel area for 24 years. In addition to the food pantry, the non-profit also provides crisis counseling, transitional and permanent housing, and career counseling.

The slower pace of funding and donations means LARS has been having trouble keeping food on the shelves recently. The pantry is open to each client once a month, Graham said.

“We’ve never ever had difficulties keeping food on our shelves, but over the last year and a half the demand is just higher,” Graham said.

Amber Berner has been a client of LARS since 2005, and said she’s noticed the change in the availability of some foods.

“We don’t get as much meat as we used to,” said Berner, who raises four grandchildren and one great-grandchild. “It used to be twice a month, but now maybe we’ll get a little bit once a month. But there are a lot of clients and I’m thankful for what they give us.”

Graham said that in addition to an increased number of individuals needing help, those people need help more often, stretching resources thin with higher demand.

“A lot of food drives come from schools and schools aren’t in during the summer and people are on vacations,” said Shelly Kessler, a case worker and program coordinator at LARS.

So LARS organizers plan to apply to join the Capital Area Food Bank, which distributes 30 million pounds of food each year through 700 partner agencies and direct distribution in Washington, D.C.

“There is obviously an increase in hunger in the area,” said Page Dahl Crosland, spokeswoman for Capital Area Food Bank. “We know that the demand is increased between 10 to 75 percent at all of our partner agencies.”

Graham said that LARS couldn’t join the food bank’s network before because they don’t have a vehicle to pick up food regularly as is required. But a group of volunteers has recently organized a pick-up schedule.

Graham said that LARS is always looking for more partners who can help the organization meet the needs of Laurel’s hungry.

“If there are people who are able to help, now is the time because there are so many people in need,” she said.

hnunn@gazette.net