LEWISTON – Local charities say they’re losing the battle to keep up with pleas for help, despite a modest rise in donations.

Bell ringers for the Lewiston-Auburn Salvation Army have watched their kettle collection outside local stores increase slightly over last year, yet the requests for food, Christmas presents and heating oil assistance has swelled by about 35 percent, said Maj. Richard Lyle, who runs the local Salvation Army center.

“It’s mind-boggling,” Lyle said. His center will give away between $40,000 and $60,000 worth of toys this season and $14,000 worth of food and it won’t be enough.

In 2006, the charity gave holiday packs of food and gifts to just over 300 families, Lyle said. This year, the total surpassed 400 families.

“It’d be over 500 families if we didn’t stop taking applications,” Lyle said. “We’re only taking very extreme emergency cases now.”

The reason: a shaky economy worsened by high gasoline and heating oil prices, Lyle said.

It’s a common theme among area charities.

At the Good Shepherd Food-Bank in Auburn, which serves hundreds of soup kitchens and shelters across Maine, the problem is being felt on a large scale.

At the start of its fiscal year in October, the food bank set a goal of distributing 1 million pounds more food this year, a 10 percent increase. It may not be enough.

“I thought that was a pretty good goal,” said Rick Small, the food bank’s executive director. “We’re having trouble keeping food on the shelves.”

The food bank leaders met with representatives of many of its agencies recently. Most talked of added stress from the economy and fuel prices.

“There are a lot of new faces at soup kitchens and food pantries,” Small said.

He estimated that demand for food had increased by about 25 percent over last year.

This should have been time when the agency could relax a bit. Monetary donations have been increasing – $1.2 million in the past year, up more than $300,000.

It’s the same mixed condition that the United Way of Androscoggin County is experiencing. The chapter is about 80 percent of the way toward its goal of raising $1.9 million this year. Executive Director Joleen Bedard predicts the goal will be met.

“We have some very, very generous donors,” she said. She, too, is feeling the squeeze. “I do think the need is greater than ever.”

Maj. Lyle believes it will get worse, too.

Though the winter’s coldest months are still ahead, his office is already getting six to 10 calls for help each day.

He guessed that many new folks will be coming forward in January. Already, fuel prices have pushed families to the brink.

“It can take $50 to fill up the tank of a minivan,” he said. The best remedy for local folks is to lend a hand.

“If you can help it, don’t pass a red kettle without dropping something in,” Lyle said.