Nancy Morgan is grateful for the federal funding for the nine food pantries in Franklin County.
But she’s also disappointed that the $16,750 received from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Emergency Food and Shelter Program is a little more than $200 less than last year’s amount.
“We continue to see an increase in the need,” she said Friday afternoon.
A news release issued by U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud’s office on Thursday announced that social service agencies in the Second Congressional District received $319,421 from the FEMA Emergency Food and Shelter Program.
Morgan, director of the United Way of the Tri-Valley Area in Farmington, said representatives from the county’s nine food pantries will sit down next month to divide up the funds to buy food.
“We see a tremendous need,” she said.
Although the unemployment rate has not increased in the county, she said some of the unemployed have seen their benefits run out, and they are not counted on the unemployment figures.
That, together with a 50 percent cut in federal food commodities this year have put the food pantries in a bad situation.
A successful food drive was held in the fall, and now she’s thinking another must be held sometime within the next month or so.
“It’s not even cold, cold yet,” she said of the pantries that are not fully stocked.
Doug Hoyt, executive director of the United Valley Chapter of the Red Cross, said the United Ways of each county administer the FEMA Emergency Food and Shelter Program funding.
Androscoggin County received $53,609. That money must go to the county’s three or four shelters as well as to food pantries.
Larry Marcoux, director of the Androscoggin County United Way, could not be reached Friday afternoon.
The United Way of Oxford County received $31,168. Director Dennis Gray also could not be reached Friday afternoon.
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