Stressing his concern, Bill Clark, executive director of Philabundance, the region's largest hunger-relief organization, said: "We're all scared to death. And we don't see an end to this."
To compensate for the free-lunch gap, parents typically crowd into food pantries every summer, but pantries have lower supplies because donors believe family food emergencies come dressed in winter boots, not summer sandals. They save their largesse for the holidays and colder months.
As a result, good weather masks bad times.
What exacerbates the problem this season is the still-floundering economy.
For fiscal 2008, Harrisburg cut $750,000 from the state budget for food pantries, $200,000 of it in Philadelphia, Wynn said. That equals 500,000 pounds of food not purchased locally this year, she added.
On top of that, the federal food-assistance program was slashed by about 20 percent - an additional 50,000 to 70,000 pounds of food gone.
For fiscal 2009, which will begin next month, state budget levels for pantries are to remain the same (a total of $18 million), which is tantamount to a reduction given $4-a-gallon gas and other costs.
Overall food costs are 10 to 30 percent higher than they were last year, Wynn added.
Because times are so tough, food pantries report seeing more people lately, straining supplies.
"More than half the clients are coming back more frequently, and that's before schools close," Clark said. "This is a serious social problem."
Further, there aren't enough summer camps or similar organizations to provide breakfasts and lunches, said Sydelle Zove, an advocate with the Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger. And, she added, many parents don't know such sites are available.
