Pantry shelves becoming bare while needs increase

Our Daily Bread seeks help during holidays

As a single mother of three, Gerri Noel struggles to make ends meet.

"I missed so much work because of my kids getting sick," said the Centreville resident, whose daughters are 3, 5 and 8. "I wasn't able to provide for my kids like I want to."

To get by, Noel relies on Our Daily Bread, a Fairfax nonprofit that provides families with essentials such as food and toiletries.

"Anything is a help; so this is great for us," said Noel, who recently started work at an auto parts store. "I was in bad circumstances, and they have been helping me."

With demand up in recent months, keeping Our Daily Bread's shelves stocked through the holidays will be a challenge, said Christina Garris, the organization's food manager.

"Our waiting list has crept up to 80 families over the last three months," Garris said.

She said the waiting list was closer to 30 families in past years. The nonprofit, which celebrates its 25th anniversary next Thursday, offers aid to about 750 families a year.

"We're overwhelmed right now with requests," Garris said. "We've been getting lots of families you wouldn't expect [to need the services]. It seems more and more we're getting families that were doing fine and then there was a loss of a job by one spouse."

Our Daily Bread receives requests for help from single parents, disabled residents, the elderly, the jobless and even a professor.

"We have a professor who went through a really tough divorce, and his mother has cancer," Garris said. "He just can't make ends meet."

Volunteer Paige Cortes of Burke said most of the families she has helped are headed by single mothers. She described one single mother of two teenagers whose situation hit home for her.

"We pulled up to the house, and I was thinking, 'This is nicer than my house.' Then we went inside, and they had no furniture," Cortes said. She said the mother had moved with her family from New York because her son had been getting involved in gang activity. The expense of the move left the family sleeping on the floor.

To pay for the food and toiletries it supplies to families, Our Daily Bread raises about $500,000 a year from a mix of public grants and private donations from corporations, religious groups and the public. Volunteers provide much of Our Daily Bread's labor.

The pantry delivers two weeks of emergency supplies for families during a four-month period. Families and individuals are referred by county social workers to the program, Garris said. Once their four-month service period is over, families go back to their social worker for an additional referral if they need more help from the pantry.

Products that are in high demand but in low supply at the pantry include toiletries, such as shampoos, soaps, toilet paper, laundry detergent and diapers.

"One of the hardest things to get donated -- and is really in need -- is diapers sizes 4, 5 and 6," Garris said. "Half of our clients are children."