As the holidays near, need is outpacing donations in this traditional season of giving.

Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

More people are receiving assistance from the Trinity Jubilee Center in Lewiston. An unidentified woman leaves the center during Thursday morning's weekly food pantry.

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- Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

Trinity Jubilee Center staffer Julia Sleeper, left, and volunteer Erin Reed fill bags for a food pantry client at the center Thursday morning.

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- Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

Upcoming Thanksgiving meals in central and western Maine

Farmington area

Farmington, Thursday, Nov. 26: Free public Thanksgiving Day Dinner, 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., Mt. Blue High School. Sponsored by the Scottish Rite Masons. Free. FMI or for home delivery, call 779-0641.

Oxford Hills area

Sumner, Wednesday, Nov. 25: Light meal followed by a Thanksgiving Eve service, 6 p.m., Congregational Church, East Sumner. FMI: Bill or Linda at 388-2263.

Norway, Thursday, Nov. 26: Free public Thanksgiving dinner, noon, St. Catherine's Church parish center, 32 Paris St. Co-sponsored by the Community Thanksgiving Dinner Committee of St. Catherine of Sienna Church and Christ Episcopal Church. For reservations, call 743-2606.

Oxford, Thursday, Nov. 26: Free public Thanksgiving meal (vegetarian turkey dinner), 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., Seventh-day Adventist Church, 259 Fore St.

West Paris, Thursday, Nov. 26: Free public Thanksgiving meal, noon, West Paris Baptist Church, Church Street. FMI: 674-3205.

Otisfield, Friday, Nov. 27: Food pantry, 1-5 p.m., Baptist Church, Rayville Road. FMI: 539-4619.

Otisfield, Tuesday, Dec. 1: Food pantry, 10 a.m. to noon, Spurrs Center Church, Route 121. FMI: 583-4780 or 627-4329.

Lewiston area

Lewiston, Monday, Nov. 23: Thanksgiving dinner for participants of the Transitional Living Program for homeless youths (16- to 21-year-olds) and the Homeless Intervention Program (10- to 21-year-olds), 3-5 p.m., B Street Community Center. Tom Poulin will teach how to cook on a budget. FMI: 212-1727.

Lewiston, Monday, Nov. 23: Thanksgiving dinner for Blue Willow clients, 300 Pine St. FMI: 777-3399.

Lewiston, Thursday, Nov. 26: Free public Thanksgiving dinner, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Hope Haven Gospel Mission, 209 Lincoln St. The meal, served free, is available for delivery to shut-ins. For delivery, call 783-6086.

New Gloucester, Thursday, Nov. 26: Free public Thanksgiving dinner, 1-4 p.m., New Gloucester Bible Church, 218 Lewiston Road. FMI: 240-9659.

LEWISTON — The food line goes on and on.

Middle-aged men stand with their eyes fixed on the bare wall. Kids sulk. Women strategize on how to stretch their few items of food — potatoes, bread, canned goods and dry goods — before they reach the door of Trinity Jubilee Center's pantry.

So many people gather at the center for weekly food giveaways — including a growing population of newly downsized or underemployed people — that the line itself tests people's hunger. Folks looking for just another handout are unlikely to wait that long. So, the charity asks no questions.

"If you're going to stand in line for 45 minutes for eight little items, you can have them," said Kim Wettlaufer, the center's executive director.

Only seven months ago, the food pantry's Thursday mornings typically drew about 120 people. That number now reaches 250 most weeks. And one recent Thursday drew an all-time high of 280.

"A lot of people have lost their jobs," said Dell Caron Gray, the center's program director. "We're also seeing a lot of families that have jobs but still can't make ends meet.

"If you work a full-time job and make minimum wage, you have barely enough to pay your rent and utilities," Gray said. "Food is the first thing to be cut."

It's a common story, both locally and across the state, where unemployment has reached 8.5 percent.

This Thanksgiving may be Maine's hungriest in more than a decade.

Jobless

In Androscoggin County, unemployment jumped from 5.3 percent in September 2008 to 8.4 percent this September, according to the Maine Department of Labor. Among the county's 14 towns, 1,700 people who were employed last year are jobless today. Countless more who have jobs are squeezed by shrinking benefits and stagnant wages.

Requests for General Assistance — local aid — have climbed sharply and food assistance applications are way up.

Statewide, about $20.8 million in food stamps was distributed in October 2008, according to the Maine Department of Health and Human Services. This October, that number climbed to almost $28.2 million, a one-year increase of 35 percent.

Almost $1 million of the increase was in Androscoggin County, where food aid totalled $2.1 million. Nearly half of that was spent in Lewiston.

"We have barely enough people to process the applications," said Sue Charron, Lewiston's social services director, whose office gives heating and rent assistance.

In October 2008, she received 575 requests for General Assistance. This October, her office collected 765 requests. The pattern began with a spike this summer.

"It's more than we've ever seen before," said Charron, who has worked in the city office for nearly 20 years.

Most folks need help to avoid eviction from their apartments. In all her years, Charron has helped people make mortgage payments only twice before. That too has changed.

"I'm processing three right now," she said.

Charities stretched

The sudden demand in aid has fallen particularly hard on charities, such as the Good Shepherd Food-Bank.

The supplier to hundreds of food pantries and soup kitchens across the state is distributing more food than ever — about 12.5 million pounds this year — but it's still not enough, Executive Director Rick Small said.

Charities such as Trinity Jubilee Center purchase food from Small's nonprofit for pennies a pound. As the street demand rises in Lewiston and across Maine, so does the demand on the food bank. Since last year, that demand has risen about 30 percent, he said.

"That's a major jump at a time when food is getting harder to get," Small said.

Last Tuesday, several of the 60-foot-tall shelves at the Auburn warehouse sat empty.

"This is how it's been," he said. "People are coming for more food and more food and more and more."

In late September, the food bank's board of directors boosted funding for food purchases by $300,000 in the new 2009-10 budget, to a total of $1.5 million, anticipating the need.

"It won't be enough," Small said this week. "We're going to find a way to keep increasing. I don't know how, though."

Small cited USDA numbers released this week that estimated 49 million Americans, including 17 million children, are "food insecure." The federal agency defines households as food insecure when they have limited the amounts, variety or health of their food because of financial pressures.

The food bank estimates that 12 percent of Maine homes are food insecure.

Hungry and homeless

Salvation Army Lieutenants Jason and Jennifer Brake see the effects of food shortage every day. Too often, people come into their Lewiston office and cry.

"Often, the best thing you can do for them is to listen," Jason said. Folks tell their stories of being jettisoned from longtime jobs, of falling ill or failing in their marriages. The hazards send ripples through their lives, often leaving them hungry or homeless.

On a recent afternoon, Jason sat with a veteran who had been a truck driver for decades. He was hungry and had been sleeping in his pickup. Like so many people who have been looking for aid these days, he'd never needed help before.

"It was so hard for him to ask," Jason said. He was embarrassed and exhausted from working so hard to survive.

"I hate saying no to anyone in need," he said. "You try to figure out, 'What do they really need?'"

The Salvation Army officer made sure the man had a warm place to sleep.

It's the kind of plea he has heard too often.

Since the summer began, people have been coming to the Salvation Army's Park Street office looking for help with food almost daily.

"We would typically help 15 people a month," Jason said. Using food from Good Shepherd, the charity gives people enough food staples to get their families by for four or five days.

"It has doubled or even tripled," he said. "I don't know why (the demand exploded this summer)."

Gray, at the Trinity Jubilee Center, knows this: The growing population of needy people appreciates the help.

"My clients are polite," she said. "They say 'please' and 'thank you.'"

And their thank-yous can be touching.

One young couple recently presented her with bags of baby clothes, baby furniture and baby blankets. It was meant to repay some of the help they had received in the center. Gray repacked the gifts and distributed them among eight families.

"They wanted to pay it forward," Gray said. "You hope everyone does that."

dhartill@sunjournal.com