Sherrod Brown: “on Monday, in Hocking County--a small-town, rural county in southeast Ohio--residents began forming a line at the Smith…”

“on Monday, in Hocking County--a small-town, rural county in southeast Ohio--residents began forming a line at the Smith Chapel United Methodist Church Pantry before dawn. By 8:30, when volunteers began distributing food, the line of cars stretched for more than a mile and a half. By early afternoon, more than 2,000 residents had received food. That is over 7 percent of the local population. Mr. President, 1 out of 14 people in this county had received food from this food pantry. Eight years ago, the same pantry was serving 17 families a month. Two thousand people in one day; 17 families for the whole month 8 years ago. The Freestore Foodbank in Cincinnati, OH, has seen a 52-percent increase in demand this year. Many of these new patrons are working people. They are working minimum-wage jobs. Some hold two jobs. They are not just the homeless. They are not just the dispossessed. They are all kinds of people who have had a series of bad luck in the last several months. With food prices going up, fuel prices going up, wages stagnating, and subprime foreclosures continuing to hit home, working middle-class Americans are finding it difficult to find room in their budgets for food. More Americans in need; less food available--the result is far too much human suffering. Think of this. In the wealthiest Nation in the world, people are waiting in line for a subsistence level of food, and some of them are not even receiving that.”