AUBURN — These are the good days for the Good Shepherd Food-Bank.

The mail brings so many $5 to $50 checks at Christmastime — peaking at about 600 per day just before the holiday — office help is borrowed to aid in the charity’s meticulous bookkeeping.

Yet the money is barely enough to meet demand.

The supplier to hundreds of Maine soup kitchens and food pantries is being squeezed worse than ever, Rick Small, the Auburn charity’s executive director, said.

“We have to work a lot harder to get the same amount of food,” Small said. “And more food is needed.”

At the heart of the problem is Maine’s feeble economy.

“In most of the state of Maine, if you lose your job it’s pretty tough to find another one,” he said. 

According to new  numbers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the number of people in Maine with food insecurity rose from 143,000 to 193,000 between 2008 and 2009, when the new numbers were compiled. And the rate of very low food security — which the USDA defines as “disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake” — topped the nation at 6.7 percent.

“It’s discouraging to know it’s going up that fast,” Small said Tuesday. “A lot of people don’t realize that one in five Maine children under the age of 18 needs food.”

It’s the kind of information that has troubled the food bank for years.

Late founder JoAnn Pike had hoped to one day feed every hungry person in Maine. When the food bank’s current headquarters and warehouse opened in 2001, it was designed to move a maximum of 12 million pounds of food each year.

Nine years later, Good Shepherd is already there, moving food at a rate of 12 to 13 million pounds per year, Small said.

Hannaford Supermarkets continues to be its big food donor of food with daily deliveries, but two other suppliers have stepped up. In the last two years, Wal-Mart has begun setting aside food at its Supercenters for Good Shepherd.

The other came on earlier this year.

“Our latest big ‘yea’ is Shaws,” Small said. “We got a notice saying, ‘We’re gonna start donating.”

“I think we’re now picking up in 16 of the stores and eventually, we’ll have all 26,” Small said.

As with Wal-Mart, the food bank is picking up the food rather than accept delivery, adding to the Auburn charity’s expense, but payoff is an extraordinary volume.

In 2011, Small expects each to pass the one-million-pound mark in donations.

Added to that is planned expansion of a program that is buying food directly from local farms.

Currently, Good Shepherd is working with 15 farms, which produced 325,000 pounds of food that went to the food bank’s agencies. 

The food bank is looking at examining some processing of produce, probably freezing it, as a way of making the donations last.

“By Oct. 15, the donations dry up but the need lasts,” Small said.

A new donation also ought to help keep the freezer going.

Lions Clubs across Maine, 81 in total, donated a 275-kilowatt generator to the charity after several members toured the Hotel Road warehouse and discovered there was no backup power.

In the last year, the facility lost power about six times.

The Maine Lions Clubs raised much of the money themselves. The club’s International Foundation added a $50,000 grant.

“This saves us a lot of worry,” Small said. “It’s insurance against terrible losses.”

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