High demand for holiday food vouchers stuns agency

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By COLLEEN KENNEY / Lincoln Journal Star

Some people cry on the phone.

This comes after workers at the Center for People in Need tell them the agency can’t give out any more vouchers to buy turkey and sweet potatoes and other fixings for holiday meals, that the staff has been overwhelmed with requests this year and that donations aren’t meeting the demand.

Sorry, the workers say.

“It’s really sad,” said Beatty Brasch, executive director of the center. “It’s been awful. The tragedy of this — it’s over $10 vouchers.

“But people are so desperate.”

Brasch says the high demand for vouchers this year has stunned the staff at the Center for People in Need.

Each of the past two years, the center has helped about 3,000 families get the food vouchers through the Giving Thanks Giving Food program.

So far this year, the center already has had 3,895 families requesting them.

Because of the high demand, the center has had to raise its funding goal for the program from $30,000 to $38,950.

It has raised $23,127 so far.

“I think the No. 1 reason we’re being overwhelmed this year is because programs that normally help families that are very low income, the elderly and the disabled are no longer in existence,” Brasch said. “The federal government has cut back an awful lot of programs for people.”

And, she said, the government is considering other cuts to programs that help low-income people, such as in the food stamp program and Medicaid and child-care programs. So next year’s demand for vouchers, she said, could be even higher.

Brasch said there are about 23,000 families in Lincoln that are low income — families making $19,000 or less.

And many make a lot less, she said.

The Giving Thanks Giving Food project is a collaboration between the Center for People in Need and more than 30 local agencies that help low-income families, such as the Good Neighbor Center, Malone Center, Asian Center, CenterPointe and Lincoln Action Program. Those agencies give the Center for People in Need names of families who qualify.

The center then double-checks the names to ensure no duplicates and sends vouchers to the families.

The vouchers can be used at local grocery stores. All of the money donated to the program goes toward the vouchers.

Reach Colleen Kenney at 473-2655 or ckenney@journalstar.com.

How to give

Donations for the Giving Thanks Giving Food program, which gives low-income families $10 food vouchers to help buy holiday meals, can be sent to the Center for People in Need, 2025 Holdrege St., Lincoln, NE 68503.

For more information, call Beatty Brasch or Deb Daily at 476-4357.