Gas prices burden families, Obama says at food pantry

Last week, McCain held events in Cincinnati and Youngstown.

COLUMBUS (AP) — Visiting an eastern Ohio food pantry on Tuesday, Barack Obama said he’s heard firsthand from families struggling with the high cost of gasoline and its effect on their budgets.

Obama said people are making choices between the type of food they can buy because they’re spending as much as $200 more a month in gasoline.

“I hear from families every single day who are feeling the crushing burden of higher gas prices,” Obama said at Eastside Community Ministry in Zanesville. “This is putting an enormous burden on individual families, and it’s a drain on our entire economy.”

Eastside Community Ministry in Zanesville operates one of 12 food banks in Muskingum County, all of which have seen an increase in demand this past year.

During his trip to must-win Ohio, Obama said he would continue and expand a program begun under President Bush that steers federal social service dollars to religious groups.

“This council will not just be another name on the White House organization chart — it will be a critical part of my administration,” he said.

Obama said it was organizations such as Eastside Community Ministry that led him toward a career in public service.

Obama’s trip to Zanesville, his second to Ohio in two weeks, is part of Obama’s strategy to visit as many parts of the state as possible.

In the March primary, Obama won the greater Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus and Cleveland areas, along with Delaware County in north-central Ohio, while Hillary Rodham Clinton won the rest of the state, from smaller cities to suburbs to rural areas. Her campaign attributed her success to a model of statewide visits championed by Gov. Ted Strickland.

“This visit reflects Sen. Obama’s commitment to campaigning all across Ohio, talking to people in all communities about the challenges they’re facing,” said campaign spokesman Isaac Baker.

Sen. John McCain was in Ohio two days last week, holding town hall meetings and fundraisers in Cincinnati and Youngstown.

The Republican National Committee continued to criticize Obama for comments made by campaign surrogates questioning whether McCain’s military service qualified him to be president.

“Obama’s ‘say anything to get elected’ tour continues today in Ohio where he’ll attempt to showcase public service while his campaign surrogates routinely attack John McCain’s service to our country,” said RNC spokeswoman Blair Latoff.

Over the past two years the number of Ohioans served by soup kitchens has risen more than 50 percent.

The number of households served by Ohio’s food banks rose 18 percent from January 2006 to January 2008, according to the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks.

“A lot of those we see in this community who are needing assistance have some decisions to make,” said Gretchen Sayre, who runs a soup kitchen in Zanesville close to the one Obama visited. “They either buy food and medicine, pay their bills or they buy gas to get back and forth to work.”

One in every five families in Zanesville is below the federal poverty level. The city of about 25,000 is slowly losing population, according to U.S. Census data. The May unemployment rate for surrounding Muskingum County was 7.4 percent, well above Ohio’s already high rate of 6.3 percent.

The number of people served by soup kitchens rose 53 percent in Ohio during the same time, while the amount of food distributed to the state’s food pantries dropped 19 percent.

Nationally, food banks reported a 15 percent to 20 percent average increase in the number of people requesting help over the past year.

The national survey by America’s Second Harvest also found that nearly 55 percent of food banks — which includes soup kitchens and food pantries — reduced or are considering reducing the amount of food offered to clients.

The Ohio food bank association has been sounding warning bells for several years about the increasing number of people needing extra help with food and other basics.

“This is not an increase that is going to go away by a few sound bytes,” said Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio food bank association. “It’s going to take sound and effective public policy at all levels.”