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U.L. Squire says he has been coming to the America’s Second Harvest of Greater St. Joseph food pantry for about a year. ‘There wasn’t much stuff there today,’ he said, walking toward his car with food and his own chair in case the lines are long.

More donations, more volunteers and more in need.

Food banks across the country are seeing increases in demand and giving. According to the Feeding America organization, 99 percent of food banks in the United States are reporting a surge in emergency food assistance, and 56 percent are seeing more children as clients.

InterServ’s Calvin Center, a United Way agency, sent three times the average number of needy to its food pantry this year. After the agency runs out of funding for utility assistance, it moves on to helping feed those in need. There were about 83 calls for assistance in April and 321 calls in September, said Bridget Supple, executive director of the InterServ Foundation.

“Our food pantry really serves the working poor,” she said. “We’ve been seeing people coming in week after week for some time now.”

At the America’s Second Harvest of Greater St. Joseph food bank, there is a 21 percent increase in the local population using the pantry.

“It’s people that haven’t used (a pantry) in a long time and for the first time,” said Scott Tomhave, executive director at Second Harvest.

There are about 20 to 40 new users each week at the organization’s 19 county pantries, all of which are seeing an increase in food assistance, said Mr. Tomhave.

The last 18 months are where the local service agencies are seeing the biggest differences. Mr. Tomhave said many new faces have no income or are unemployed. Throughout the entire coverage area for Second Harvest, the count has grown significantly, up to 1,400 from just 400 in St. Joseph. Its Backpack Buddies program has increased, too, from 375 to 750.

And Kansas City was on the list of hardest-hit food banks by Feed America, along with cities in North Carolina, Florida, Mississippi and Colorado. The national organization said it delivered a record-breaking amount of food and groceries in the past year. More than 2.6 billion pounds were given between July 2008 and June 2009, Vickie Escarra, president and chief executive officer of Feeding America, said in a press release.

Participation in the Supplemental Food Assistance Program, formerly the Food Stamp program, set its own record with 35 million recipients in June 2008, a 22 percent increase in just one year.

“But I think we’re keeping up,” Mr. Tomhave said.

The donations keep coming in and more people are volunteering to lend a hand.

“That’s the wonderful thing we’ve seen,” Mr. Tomhave said.

The last fiscal year, Mr. Tomhave said the food bank had the most pounds delivered, but also had the most volunteers it’s ever had, too. Ms. Supple said donations were up $10,000 from last year.

“People are really trying to help, and we’ve seen that consistently for the past year,” she said.

Jennifer Hall can be reached

at jennhall@npgco.com.