Residents Wait Two Hours for a Thanksgiving Turkey

People were lined down Madison Avenue, some arriving as early as 7:30 a.m and waiting more than two hours. There was no concert, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 wasn’t set to be released until Tuesday.

These people were waiting on something a little more important than a video game.

Trish Rooney, executive director at (LCSC), said people were there to sign up for a Thanksgiving Day food basket, including a turkey, for the holidays.

“We’ve never seen anything close to this before,” Rooney said.

After making people aware of the sign-ups at produce distribution, hot meals and other events, LCSC opened at 10 a.m., with 180 slots for baskets.

By 12:30 p.m. last Monday, they had all been filled.

“It’s just unbelievable that we would go through that many in one day,” Rooney said.

The event underscores a trend nationwide: as the economy continues to sputter, more and more people find themselves in need of food assistance. But federal, state and local governments, strapped for cash, are slashing budgets, and food pantries and social service agencies like LCSC are often some of the first targets.

“The math just doesn’t add up,” Rooney said. “It’s all wrong.”

LCSC has seen demand for services increase dramatically over the past two years. Last month, they served 2,273 people, a 17 percent increase from October 2010, when 1,950 people needed food assistance, which itself was a 20 percent jump from October 2009.

“It just keeps going and going and going,” Rooney said. “It’s not going away.”

As if that weren’t bad enough, LCSC must meet that increased need with decreased funding.

In July, Rooney was in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant that would amount to a $10,000 loss for LCSC’s food pantry and housing assistance programs.

The holiday basket program at LCSC is a prime example.

Last year, LCSC got 175 baskets each for Thanksgiving and Christmas from . This year, they got 100 for Thanksgiving and zero for Christmas.

“A lot of people wanted to be put on the waiting list for Christmas baskets,” Rooney said. “We had to tell them no, because we aren’t sure if we’re even going to have anything.”

Luckily, the organization was able to score 80 additional turkeys, and students from are donating pumpkin pies.

Rooney said that kind of patchwork service has become the norm.

“We’re like every other social services center,” she said. “It’s back to the drawing board every month to try to find creative ways to meet demand.”