In these tough economic times, people who once contributed a few canned goods to their local food pantry may now find themselves on the receiving end of charity, and they’re not alone.

“More than 1 million pounds of food will have been distributed this past year throughout Niagara County by the Food Bank of Western New York,” said Anne Julian, the Food Bank’s services manager. “And that doesn’t count December, which is our heaviest month.”

The Food Bank, headquartered at 91 Holt St. in Buffalo, also distributes free food throughout Erie, Cattaraugus and Chautauqua counties.

“To put this in perspective, our emergency food providers—the food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters —do this every day for the community, not just around the holidays, although this is usually the time to give, around Thanksgiving and Christmas,” Julian said. “They provide [a tremendous] service for the community. We like to say we work for them, because if we didn’t have them to distribute the food, we wouldn’t be here.”

The Food Bank supplies 21 food pantries throughout Niagara County. Food pantries are found in busy city sites, including Community Missions at 1570 Buffalo Ave. in Niagara Falls, as well as smaller, rural areas, including Faith United Methodist Church at 1449 Quaker Road in Barker.

In Niagara County, the Food Bank relies on the Niagara Community Action Program in Niagara Falls to distribute food to all 21 pantries. Carol Palumbo serves as NiaCAP’s coordinator of family development and nutrition.

“I’m just looking at the monthly reports, and I would say that there has been a 30 percent increase in need among our providers in the past 12 months. It’s very significant,” Palumbo said. “Lots of these people have typically donated food, and now, due to job losses and medical emergencies, they are accessing our food providers.

“I’ve been with NiaCAP for 20 years, and with the distribution center for 10, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this before, where it’s affected so many people.”

In addition to acting as the Food Bank’s Niagara County distribution site, NiaCAP also operates its own food pantries in Niagara Falls, at 564 19th St.; in Lockport, at 160 Washburn St.; and in North Tonawanda, at 216 Thompson St.

NiaCAP also aids working families with rent, mortgage payments and utilities.

“It’s been terrible,” Palumbo said. “For example, I know one man who had a $25-per-hour job, and his job was cut, and he had to take a $10-per-hour job. He and his wife have three kids, two in college. It’s been a complete lifestyle change. It has been noticeably catastrophic. These are the kinds of things we’ve been seeing.”

Yet Palumbo remains optimistic.

“Everyone’s doing the best they can,” she said. “In Niagara County and in Western New York, our community sticks together. We find [the help]. We’re such a caring and giving community.”

Jinny Carnegie concurred. She has been volunteering for 33 years with what is now called the Newfane Community Food Pantry, in St. Brendan of the Lake Catholic Church at 3455 Ewings Road, which relies on help from members of 12 churches in the area.

“We help about 200 families here, and that’s a lot for a little community,” Carnegie said. “We’ve been seeing more people because they’re losing their jobs, and we’ve been seeing more elderly because of the cost of medicine and medical care. It’s affecting all of us.

“But this is a real community effort, and that’s what makes it work so well. We’re all in it to help one another.”

No one knows, and appreciates, that more than William Ritz, 66, of Wilson, who has been coming to the Country Roads Caring Neighbors pantry at 608 Lake St. there for the last couple of years.

The retired farmer and truck driver slowly walked from table to table with the help of his cane Wednesday as he received bags of canned fruits and vegetables and a frozen ham slice from cheerful volunteers.

“I had no pension where I worked,” Ritz said. “I’m trying to see if I can get some help from the Veterans Administration. I was in the Army in Vietnam. If this [pantry] wasn’t here, I’d just get by the best I could.”

Patti Barger, 49, of Ransomville, was choosing a few small presents for her four granddaughters, ages 5 to 8, who live with her, as well as picking up bags of food.

“This is really a help — big time,” she said. “By the time the food stamps run out [midmonth], this helps. I don’t know what we’d do without it.”

Country Roads serves people in Wilson, Burt, Porter, Ransomville, Youngstown and parts of Cambria and Sanborn.

“We’re open once a month and help about 224 people, or up to about 90 families,” said pantry director Ella Lester. “But I’m available every day to help in an emergency. We have about 20 volunteers at different times, and we’re always looking for more, especially younger people. We’re a small pantry. The numbers usually drop during the summer, but I don’t expect anything to drop anymore.

“We have a lot more people coming and will probably continue to get more, with the closing of the Pfeiffer Foods plant. There’s been a lot of heartache. In a lot of families, the father and mother both worked at Pfeiffer, and they’re doing all right now, with unemployment [insurance] and severance pay, but just wait until that ends.”

Lester said that the Food Bank provides guidelines for eligibility and that a recipient is only allowed to visit one pantry in his or her own district once or twice a month, depending on the individual pantry schedule.

“When people call me, I say I need a proof of address, proof of employment or unemployment, a driver’s license and proof of receiving food stamps,” Lester said. “It’s real simple.”

Lester and her volunteers fill grocery bags for their clients, taking care to offer nutritionally balanced fare but also trying to offer them a small choice of products.

While receiving the bulk of its food from the Food Bank, Country Roads also relies on private donations and has had a long-standing partnership with Thomas Marks Elementary School.

In addition, Lester pointed out that many smaller food pantries or groups which provide food baskets—groups that don’t receive Food Bank support and often operate out of churches — “spring up all over and work strictly through their neighborhoods.”

This is helpful, particularly in rural areas, as sometimes those in need who live out in the country have difficulty with transportation.

“If you don’t have money for food, you might not have money for gas,” said Kelly Burke, the Food Bank’s services coordinator. “We’d like to increase the number of food pantries we have throughout Niagara County, so if anyone is interested in starting one up, let us know and we’ll help guide you. In the smaller communities, it might seem like a struggle to take on such a program, but we have other services that can help and you can be as big as you want to be.”

The Food Bank itself receives goods through private and corporate donations, as well as federal and state support.

According to federal and state statistics, there are now about 800,000 households in New York State that are “food insecure,” or who don’t reliably know when or from where their next meal will come. Since 2006, the number of emergency meals across the state has risen by 60 million — an increase of 55 percent. Approximately 860,000 emergency meals were served between July 2008 and July 2009 in Niagara County alone.

In response, Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand, D-N. Y., announced Wednesday that she is introducing legislation to double federal funding for the Emergency Food Assistance Program, make the Good Samaritan Hunger Relief Tax Incentive permanent to encourage more businesses to fill food banks with unused food items, and extend tax credits that encourage senior citizens to donate portions of their retirement savings to New York charities.

“Food pantries are always looking for new resources,” said the Food Bank’s Burke. “A lot of them are struggling to keep afloat because people who were once donating are now clients.”

Sister Barbara Pfohl, manager of Heart, Love and Soul Food, which operates a food pantry and soup kitchen at 939 Ontario Ave. in Niagara Falls, said that her numbers are up and that she and her volunteers have been serving, on average, about 360 families per month for the last six months.

“People are still calling, and we’ll serve closer to 400 families this month,” she said last week. “We just prayed this morning that we would be able to help everyone. There is a great respect, camaraderie and gratitude among the people who come here.”

Maj. Martha Wheeler of the Salvation Army at 50 Cottage St. in Lockport said her group served 1,300 people last December. “And we’re not the only food pantry in Lockport,” Wheeler said, “so you can just imagine the need out there.

“We always hope we are assisting the people who really need help, but sometimes those people don’t ask. We would love to reach those folks.

“And in November and December, everyone’s in a giving mood, and we sometimes forget May and June. But people are still in need.”