But they do since their parents don’t know how to use birth control and to give it up when it comes to the welfare checks.
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/113-06232008-1553060.html
With school out, kids could go hungry
By AUBREY WHELAN
The Intelligencer
June 23, 2008
For Lynette Cruz, the fact that nearly 200,000 children in the Philadelphia area could go hungry this summer hits home.
In the 1980s, Cruz raised six children while living on welfare in Bristol. Free breakfasts and lunches provided by her children’s schools, she said, helped alleviate the financial burden.
“It was harder in the summertime, because they had breakfast in the morning and they got free lunches (at school during the school year). Otherwise, we had to conserve … but I was always trying to stretch it. It was very hard times then,” she said.
Now a Fairless Hills resident, Cruz works with families who face problems like she did at Faith Baptist Church’s food pantry in Fairless Hills, where fewer donations and more clients exemplify a growing problem at food banks across the Philadelphia area.
According to Philadelphia-based charity Philabundance, which supplies more than 600 Delaware Valley food banks, 197,188 children in the Philadelphia area who receive free or reduced-price breakfasts and lunches could go hungry this summer now that schools have closed. In Bucks County, 12,375 children receive free or reduced-price meals at school; Montgomery County schools serve free or reduced-price meals to 15,142 children.
For many area food cupboards, gearing up during the summer to provide food for children and their families is not a new occurrence, said Philabundance president and executive director Bill Clark.
But this year, thanks to rising food prices, a dearth of donations and little government aid until at least October, food cupboards may not be able to fill that need.
“This is a year that’s a perfect storm of problems,” Clark said. “You don’t have to be poor to know the impact of higher food prices.”
Philabundance manager of communications Marlo DelSordo said increased traffic at food cupboards puts a strain on supplies.
“More people are coming for assistance, but there’s less food going into the system. This summer is probably going to be the most challenging we’ve faced,” she said.
The Indian Valley Opportunity Center, a Souderton-based charity, is listed as one of Philabundance’s member agencies on its Web site, philabundance.org. Center director James Holton said its food pantry is beginning to feel the strain of increased customers, although its food supply is currently in good shape.
However, pantry assistant Mary Ann Gerhart said the amount of people requesting aid this year is surprising.
“Now, with the gas prices, everybody is really tight. I think there’s more and more need,” she said.
Jamison resident Leila Steele, charities chairwoman for Prudential Fox & Roach’s Doylestown office, is holding a food drive for the Bucks County Housing Group and Doylestown Food Pantry this month at her office at 550 N. Main St. in Doylestown.
Bucks County Housing Group volunteer coordinator and food pantry coordinator Kate Bianchini said the pantry served 86 families last May. This May, it supplied 186 families, and supplies are running low.
The pantry has served more middle-income families this year. “It’s not just low-income anymore,” she said.
Clark said Philabundance’s lack of supplies has led the organization to begin asking for monetary donations so it can purchase and distribute food on its own.
“It’s not a very cost-efficient way, but when people are hungry, it’s the only thing you can do,” he said. “The short-term solution — the only thing you can do is throw some money at the problem.”
At the New Britain Food Larder in New Britain, supplies are also low, said food larder chairwoman Shirley Eyrich.
“Right now our shelves are getting barer all the time,” she said. Everything in the larder, she said, including basic necessities like toilet paper and shampoo, is “in short demand.”
“People give most when it comes to November, December, January,” she said. “And the rest of the time, I think they sort of forget that there are a lot of hungry people yet.”
Philabundance’s goal this summer is not necessarily to provide programs for children to receive food themselves, but to help their families obtain enough to feed them during the summer, said Clark.
“We’re trying to well up the cupboard network itself,” he said. “We see this tidal surge that hits 400, 500 cupboards. This tidal surge is the families needing to provide food to all their members. We’re interested in helping the entire family.”
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I actually like Steve and Mike’s comments - if a woman is incapable of feeding one tiny hungry mouth then why does she make five more babies? This is common sense, not rocket science. Yet they know they can get that free welfare check in the mail each month for every baby they make. The United States needs some major welfare reform, and not in the form of more handouts for these young women who insist on making babies just for the tax dollars. They are not paying into the system; they’re living off the system. Sooner or later, these people will have to learn how to control their breedership and develop some real skills and hobbies that will benefit society. That benefit will be able to help fill the food pantries, thereby making these people be more productive in society. It should be made illegal for Americans to “work the system.” I’d even support a revamped workfare system so that wannabe lifetime welfare recipients will be discouraged from that kind of lifestyle, and discouraged from making babies every year of their lives just for that state welfare check.
