Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland last week proposed a number of cuts to help fill a $3.2 billion hole in the state budget. And while the Ohio House and Senate are meeting in conference committee to come up with a budget before July 1, the governor’s proposal, if it remains in the final budget, would eliminate $7 million in funding for Ohio’s Second Harvest Food Bank, which supplies food pantries throughout Ohio.

The Second Harvest Food Bank of Southeastern Ohio is one of 12 such operations throughout the state that receive surplus food donations and channels this food to charitable feeding organizations throughout 10 counties in southeast Ohio.

This branch is coordinated through the Athens Hocking Perry Community Action, where Food & Nutrition Director Dick Stevens said the impact of such a cut would devastate the operation.

He said that the Second Harvest state association had been receiving $8.5 million per year, and with the downturn of the economy and job layoffs, they are being hit in unprecedented numbers. They are trying to be the safety net for people turning to pantries for food assistance, he said, many for the first times in their lives.

“The state association’s original request was a modest request of $17 million a year, and that represented $1 per person of all the families that we’re serving statewide,” Stevens said. “And what we’ve seen in the last year is the demand for food assistance has increased by at least 30 percent throughout the state, adding to the fact that food costs are up about 26 percent. All of these factors are a train wreck.”

In such hard times the state has to ensure that basic food needs are one of the higher priorities, according to Stevens. “People have to eat,” he said. “That $7 million that we learned was due to be cut was a $3.5 million increase to the $8.5 million we were receiving for the biennium… So they’re saying that they’re going to cut us back down to where we were.”

With many people who had worked all their lives now showing up at food pantries, he said, basic food needs need to be a priority now more than ever.

“The legislators need to hear that,” he said. “You can’t just be worrying about the political ramifications of your decisions. This is a situation here where people are struggling so hard just to put food on the table that the least we can do is try to respond to those basic needs during this crisis.”

He said the state association is currently appealing to state legislators to consider this. Over the past few years, Stevens said, food banks have already been falling short in supply.

“Even at the full [$17 million] funding that the state association requested in the budget, that funding from the state represents about 25 percent of all the food distributed statewide,” Stevens said. “But it’s a critical factor in providing a general support to all the food banks in the state, who are all struggling.”

He said southeast Ohio has always had a unique need for this state assistance. “It’s always been harder here because we have minimum resources anyway, and we have great need,” he said. “We serve 10 counties, and some of them have the highest unemployment rates in the state.”

State-funded programs are more critical to this area’s operation because they don’t have a lot of extra resources to make up for the shortfall, Stevens explained. “We really rely on those programs,” he said.

Second Harvest Executive Director Lisa Hamler-Fugitt said that Strickland originally proposed level $8.5 million funding. The Ohio House, in its budget, gave an additional $3.5 million per year, which the Ohio Senate agreed to, bringing the funding level to $12 million. Strickland is now proposing bringing it back to $8.5 million. She said this would result in a loss of 35 million meals statewide.

“There is no way to make that up,” Hamler-Fugitt said. “It’s going to increase hunger among the 1.8 million Ohioans who already depend on food banks, food pantries and soup kitchens. [It] takes food off of the plates and out of the mouths of 705,000 children and 232,000 seniors.”

She charged that this would hamper the state’s efforts in turning around its economic fortunes.

“Hungry kids can’t learn, and they grow up to be adults who can’t earn,” Hamler-Fugitt said.

Athens Hocking Perry Community Action Executive Director Bob Garbo agreed that the impact would be devastating.

“We’ve already been suffering due to national manufacturers cutting back on their donations,” Garbo said. “And at least we had some state product to help. Now if we’re going to take another whack with that, it’s even more bad news for the folks that we serve.”

Garbo said he’s disappointed that the leadership in Columbus isn’t willing to bite the bullet and say that the state needs a temporary tax increase to deal with the revenue shortfalls.

“It’s not unheard of in states to do this,” Garbo said. “You do it for two years and then it expires. That’s it. And it helps you get through a budget crunch. It’s been done under Republican governors before. It’s just that nobody seems willing to take the step, and that’s just being chicken.”

The cuts, Garbo said, seem to be disproportionately aimed toward the more vulnerable people.

“We don’t hear about laying off and closing down highway maintenance, do we?” Garbo asked. “And that affects everybody. If you did that, you’d really get some screaming. Again, you target [cuts] at a certain group that are having mental-health issues, and children, and people out of work, they don’t have much voice. It just seems to be a little bit unfair.”

Agencies that the southeast Ohio food bank supplies in Athens County include the Nelsonville Food Cupboard, the Nelsonville Soup Kitchen, Athens County Food Pantry, Glouster Community Center, St. Vincent DePaul Society, Torch U.M. Food Pantry, Kilvert Community Food Pantry, The Monday Lunch, New Life Assembly, Community Kitchen, Friends & Neighbors Pantry, United Campus Ministry, Basic Needs Ministry, Athens Community Food Pantry, Shade and Bates, the First Baptist Pantry, Feed My Sheep and the Athens Community Church Food Pantry.

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