Daily Bread works towards supporting the local community and helping implies make it through tough times. Donations generally decline during any time of economic turbulence, but the recent recession has taken a harder toll on American families than any previous time since the Great Depression. The economic recession that we are going through has been the longest recession since World War II (The National Bureau of Economic Research, 2010). Our local community was hit especially hard when the Bishop Auto Brakes plant closed down at the lowest point of the recession, one whose recovery has not been felt in our town.
Many families and individuals affected by the more than 12,000 Lana layoffs have had a great deal of trouble finding employment (see Fig. 1). As a food pantry that operates solely based off of the communists contributions, the local economic health has made it so that now more than ever your donations are needed. The number of families who struggle to keep themselves sheltered and fed has risen dramatically in our community (National Poverty Center). Daily Bread provides for these hungry families, often resulting in their only meal of the day.
Daily Bread provides food (see Fig. 2) and clothing assistance for families who have been hit hardest by the economic downfall that our country began years ago. However, as of recently donations have dwindled making it harder to reach all families who need help. Our soup kitchen currently feeds 100-150 visitors daily but we have unfortunately had to turn away people who have no other means of helping with daily costs of living. A mitigating factor remains to be the rise in energy prices, which can be felt through transportation costs and building operations costs.
This has had a negative ripple effect on other areas of operation of our organization. Last year, Daily Bread’s operating costs were well above its income from donations of money and food. Although the sum of the donations last year were $672,000. 00, we had costs exceed $800,000. 00. We have turned to different areas of operation to seek out ways to cut down on costs. We have brought the yearly cost of operation down to $700,000 but we have still fallen short of our goal to remain below the donation threshold. [pick (Fig. ) $30,000 to $130,000 dollars could have gone a long way to ensuring that we wouldn’t have to send anyone home hungry. In order to qualify for Daily Bread services, one must fill out an application. After filling the application out, a prospective guest would be required to show identification that would be entered into the identification system that Daily Bread uses for all of its guests to help ensure that donations reach as many people as possible. We provide coffee until 1 lam, when we open our doors for lunch.
We provide a plate of hot food prepared daily by our volunteer cooks and staff. We stop serving at pm, when we begin tearing everything down and do cleanup. During the eating times we make our next-door shower facility available to those who have registered with us. We strive to attend to the neediest and most at-risk families first by beginning to provide support to families with hillier who are not on welfare and therefore have no other source of assistance in providing for the cost of living.
We work with individuals and families to create a custom set of goals for each person who seeks our assistance to help members take the necessary steps to climb out of poverty. Our job seeker assistance provides resources to those looking for work such as free faxing, computer use, and accepts mail for anyone in need of an address for employment correspondence. We provide meeting places for AAA or Alcoholics Anonymous, which provides support to those in need of drug counseling services (Alcoholics Not only does Daily Bread operate a soup kitchen, but we Anonymous, 2013). Also have a shower area in our main building, a health screening service, even a thrift shop where needy families receive discounts and free clothing and other goods. We also have educational and self-help programs that promote sobriety and successful financial planning. Donations to the Daily Bread are processed to ensure that each dollar you donate, or each item you provide, will go towards assisting those in need, locally. Donations to the Daily Bread help to ensure that no one who seeks assistance will be turned away.
As we provide proper self-help courses and information, we can be sure that these tools are available to those in the highest need. With hunger being the primary need we most focus on, we also work with our guests to help them improve their lives through job seeker and financial planning services. We believe that the most effective use of your donations is to not only feed the hungry, but to provide them with the tools needed to climb out of poverty. As many of the jobs that were once around are gone it is important that we provide assistance to the unemployed for new job raining.
