In the past few weeks, there have been numerous stories in The News Tribune and other media outlets about rice shortages, rising food prices and global hunger. While many of these issues impact communities far away from Tacoma and Pierce County, many children, adults and seniors in our community are already seeing the impacts of the food crisis in their bank accounts and cupboards.

The News Tribune’s May 3 editorial headlined, “Rice shortages here, but a crisis abroad,” contained the following statement: “Many Americans are feeling the pinch of higher food prices, but most of us have options in dealing with them. We can shop the supermarket specials, use coupons, buy at discount stores or, heaven forbid, cut back on our consumption of costly but nutritionally empty junk food.”

While The News Tribune is correct that many American families are able to adjust their behaviors in response to higher prices at the grocery store, there are also many families in our community that don’t have the luxury of changing their shopping habits because they are already shopping specials, using coupons and frequenting discount stores.

Many families live on fixed food budgets that were already stretched to their limits before food prices began soaring. Each individual on food stamps is allocated approximately $21 per week for food, which does not go far in meeting their food and nutrition needs.

Many low-income working families that do not qualify for food stamps budget the little money remaining from their paychecks after paying rent and utility bills to cover food and fuel costs, and this is not stretching as far as they need it to in order to feed their families.

Many of these families have turned to emergency food programs to fill the gap in their available food resources. Pierce County food banks report that they are responding to increased visits from individuals needing food and are serving many families that have never used a food bank before.

Between January and March of this year, Pierce County food banks distributed more than 2.5 million pounds of food to households in need – an 11 percent increase over the amount of food distributed during the same time period in 2007.

As Pierce County’s emergency food system faces increased need for food resources, the Emergency Food Network strives to ensure that a reliable food supply exists to respond to all requests for emergency food. The EFN helps children and adults access nutritional food through local food banks and hot-meal sites.

With food collected in food drives, donated from for-profit corporations and resourced from other sources, the EFN works to fulfill its mission of “providing a reliable food supply so that no one in Pierce County goes hungry.”

As the sole nonprofit food distributor in Pierce County, the EFN supplies food and commodities to more than 70 food banks, hot meal sites and shelters to meet the emergency food needs of local children, adults and seniors.

The EFN is dedicated to ensuring that all members of our community have access to food and nutrition regardless of economic status.

We expect that 2008 will be a difficult year to achieve this goal, and we ask that the community join us in making sure that food is available at food banks and hot-meal sites when our neighbors need it the most.

This Saturday, the National Association of Letter Carriers will conduct its annual food drive, which is the largest annual food drive in Pierce County. This year, drive organizers in Pierce County set a goal to collect 400,000 pounds of food to fill the shelves of Pierce County food banks for the summer months.

On Thursday, letter carriers will deliver food-drive bags along with the regular mail to every residence and business in Pierce County. Postal customers are asked to fill the bag with nonperishable food items such as canned fruits and vegetables; packages of pasta, rice or beans; and other items not in glass containers and to place filled bags next to the place their letter carrier delivers the mail on Saturday. Letter carriers will see that all donated food goes to the EFN or a local food bank.

This year’s goal of 400,000 pounds will feed even more hungry members of our community and prepare our local emergency food system to respond to increased community need due to rising food and fuel prices. As a community, we can join together to ensure that all children and adults are able to meet their basic food needs.

Mike Hargreaves is the president of the Emergency Food Network board of directors and owner of Stadium Thriftway. For more information on the Emergency Food Network and opportunities to get involved, visit www.efoodnet.org or call 253-584-1040.