KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Metro shelters and soup kitchens are reporting a 20 percent increase in need this year, on the heels of a new report by the USDA saying that hunger is a growing problem in America.
At Restart, Inc. in Kansas City, one cook reported serving 175 meals a day. And the need keeps getting bigger.
"We know 2009 will be catastrophic," said Evelyn Craig, executive director.
Data out Monday from the U.S. Dep't. of Agriculture says 691,000 American children went hungry last year. More people went hungry in 2007 than in the previous nine years.
"It seems like no one is trying to help," said Eula Duncan, a cook at Restart, saying what she is able to do is "not enough."
James Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center, an anti-hunger group, told The Associated Press that national figured released by the USDA show that economic growth during the first seven years of the Bush administration didn't reach the poorest and hungriest people.
"The people in the deepest poverty are suffering the most," Weill said.
Among the findings in this year's report on hunger from the USDA:
- Close to one in eight Americans struggled to feed themselves adequately even before this year's sharp economic downturn;
- The number of children who suffered a "substantial disruption" in the amount of food they typically eat jumped more than 50% when compared with the previous year;
- 36.2 million adults and children struggled with hunger during the year 2007;
- The families with the highest rates of food insecurity were headed by single mothers (30.2 percent), black households (22.2 percent), Hispanic households (20.1 percent), and households with incomes below the official poverty line (37.7 percent).
- States with families reporting the highest prevalence of food insecurity during 2005-2007 were Mississippi (17.4 percent), New Mexico (15 percent), Texas (14.8 percent) and Arkansas (14.4 percent).
