Layoffs in Millinocket, Old Town and Brewer have put big new demands on food banks, pantries and soup kitchens that help feed the low-paid and no-paid hungry people in central and eastern Maine. The current emergency calls for special generosity from the individuals and organizations and business that supply this food.

Bill Rae, executive director of Manna Inc., which distributes food in the Bangor area from its headquarters at 180 Center St., calls the situation critical. Contributions are down this year, despite recent help from a food drive by postal workers. He says: “In another month, if we don’t get some additional donations, we will be in dire straits.”

Mr. Rae says Manna has never had to turn anyone away, although a shortage of supplies means sometimes giving a family only a can of beans instead of the usual food basket. Manna distributes 20,000 food baskets a year. He says Manna especially needs canned soup, macaroni and cheese, canned tuna, and baked beans. Also needed are foam plates for the 125 meals a night it serves at its soup kitchen and for lunch and snacks for the 12 children at its day care center.

Manna needs cash contributions, too, to help the working poor make ends meet by paying for their prescription drugs and sometimes an emergency rent payment. He says clients usually don’t qualify for food stamps, but they still often can’t afford life’s necessities.

The Good Shepherd Food Bank in Augusta, a far larger operation, serving the entire state, distributes food to 90 food pantries, shelters and soup kitchens in six counties of central Maine through its warehouse in Brewer, at 88 Stevens Road. JoAnn Pike, the executive director, says Good Shepherd can use all the food it can get to keep up with the biggest demand it has ever encountered. It sends at least one truckload a week to Brewer to serve Penobscot, Somerset, Piscataquis, Waldo, Hancock and Washington counties. Good Shepherd also assists Aroostook County by sending frequent truckloads of food to Catholic Charities in Caribou, hauled free by McCain foods in potato trucks that otherwise would be returning empty.

Good Shepherd needs cash contributions as well as the continuing flow of food products from such companies as Hannaford, Barber Foods, Shaw’s and Cisco. The food comes free, including dented cans and frozen products that are slightly under weight or nearing expiration dates. Good Shepherd usually must pay trucking charges of $400 or more. Trucking shipments from out-of-state cooperating food banks may cost as much as $2,000 – but that brings in $80,000 to $100,000 worth of food in a single truckload.

Catholic Charities in Caribou has a special problem. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has cut its normal annual contribution of $12,000 back to $6,000. That means less money to buy food for distribution to the hungry. FEMA is now part of the Department of Homeland Security, and the excuse for the cut in funding was the war on terror.

So Maine’s hungry need more help – now.