Quoted Text

SCHENECTADY
Group begs for hunger relief funding
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

    Whether there’s money or not, people must be fed, City Council members said.
    Many of them were moved by pleas for money to support the emergency food pantry, run by the Schenectady Inner City Ministry. Volunteers for SICM begged the council on Thursday to reorganize its budget for the CDBG federal grant and find a way to buy food for the hungry of Schenectady County. They spoke during the annual public hearing on the CDBG budget.
    “This morning, lined up, there were 100 waiting,” said the Rev. Phillip Grigsby, executive director of SICM. “Some had to come back later in the day. It is extraordinary for us to come to you with this request, but because of the extraordinary times, we ask you for support.”
    In the past year, 8,000 more people visited to the pantry than ever before. The pantry serves as the final safety net for the hungry, giving out food only in emergencies. Residents can seek help there just four times a year.
    Last year, 37,721 people lined up for emergency help. In addition, nearly 10,000 waited in line during eight “mass distribution” days, in which a truckload of food is given out at once.
    “There’s people in great need,” said volunteer Roy Neville. “You have a chance to put some money in the budget and make a real difference.”
    The Rev. Van Stuart also preached a short sermon regarding the council’s priorities in the proposed CDBG budget. It focuses on housing — both demolition and rebuilding — and children’s programs. Stuart said housing should not come before basic human services.
    “No matter how much we put into bricks and mortar, what you will find is we’ll have great edifices and no people,” he said.
    The public hearing was unusually short — just 20 minutes long — and drew fewer people than in previous years, possibly because the council rescheduled it after first announcing that it would be held in May. Written comments will still be accepted until May 10. After that, the council will decide how to allocate the $2.5 million in funding.
    As soon as the last speaker left the podium, council members began vigorously debating the food pantry request. In a discussion that lasted longer than the hearing, Councilman Mark Blanchfield tried to persuade his colleagues not to cut other grants to give the food pantry money.
    He noted that much of the CDBG funding goes to city services, including policing and code enforcement. If those funds were cut, the city would have to raise the shortfall elsewhere.
    “It’s a function we have to fulfill,” he said. “So we’re going to raise taxes? I don’t want to raise taxes to buy food for the food pantry.”
    But Councilwomen Denise Brucker, Margaret King and Barbara Blanchard banded together to search for cuts. Councilman Thomas Della Sala was left in the middle, saying he wanted to fund the pantry but couldn’t find a way to do it.
    “I don’t know where to take it from,” he said. “CDBG is supposed to be used for city services. We use it for other things, and that’s fine, but there is a limit to what we can do.”
    Other members of the council said they had a moral responsibility to fund the pantry in a time of great need.
    “It’s criminal on everyone’s part if we can’t figure out how to do it,” Brucker said. “I don’t want to pit one agency against another, but there’s agencies in this budget that have more access to funding than food pantries.”
    Blanchard added: “We should not have hungry children in our city. At times like this, the city has to do its part.”
    She said she’d be willing to cut a city code enforcement position if necessary to fund the food pantry. Stuart had argued for that cut.
    “It’s always an unpleasant possibility, but it’s a possibility,” Blanchard said. “I think we have to consider it. I don’t want to do it.”
    Brucker said the council would also look closely at reducing the $48,000 grant proposed for MCTAP, an agency that trains minority contractors.
    Stimulus funding, as well as grants from the Department of Labor, might replace some CDBG money for MCTAP, Brucker said. That could let the city give that money to the food pantry, which requested $50,000.
    Blanchfield said the pantry should ask for help from those with deeper pockets. He noted that when the city’s CDBG money was reduced this year, the city “significantly” cut back on CDBG funding for city services so that agencies could still be funded. ...................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar01303

Quoted Text

Last year, 37,721 people lined up for emergency help. In addition, nearly 10,000 waited in line during eight “mass distribution” days, in which a truckload of food is given out at once.
    

WOW!!!

This is a worthy cause but the Stratoon administration just received only 2% of its CBGB grant. Enough is enough they must seek private donations. BA-BA proposal is good but go further. Eliminate the entire patronage laden City Code Enforcement Department. No one would miss them and send the savings to the taxpayers-lol.

With all of the new business that the plex boasts about.....there should be plenty of private donations going into the food pantry and other welfare/non profit programs.

Quoted Text

SCHENECTADY
Council OKs $15,000 each for food pantry, health clinic
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

    The City Council cut $30,000 from the police budget Monday so that it could feed the hungry and heal the sick, resolving a twoweek debate over how to spend its annual Community Development Block Grant.
    The $2.5 million federal grant is typically used to fund a few community agencies, with the majority going toward city services. But the need for help is so great this year that the council decided to cut back on the amount it will give the police so it could give money to the Schenectady Inner City Ministry food pantry and the Schenectady Free Health Clinic. Each will get $15,000.
    The decision thrilled SICM leader Rev. Phil Grigsby, even though he had hoped for $50,000 to address the 40 percent increase in residents asking for food.
    “We had a great postal drive, so we hope drives like that will make up the difference,” he said. The postal drive last weekend raised 46,000 pounds of food, nearly double the amount donated last year.
    But Dr. Clifford Tepper of the Free Health Clinic told the council that his clinic’s $15,000 grant was “a trivial amount of money.”
    He was one of several Free Health Clinic volunteers who begged the council to reconsider and offer more money.
    “Many of you know we were funded by the state of New York,” said Mardy Moore, chairman of the clinic board. “In the coming year, in their wisdom, they are not funding us at all. So you can see we are desperate.”
    The clinic provides medicine and care to 2,500 patients a year on a budget of $750,000, with $250,000 typically provided by the state.
    Doctors warned that without that money, the clinic would likely close this year. “I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but $15,000 is a drop in the bucket. We were hoping to get $50,000,” Dr. Arnold Ritterband said.
    Executive Director William Spolyar added that 158 mental health patients who receive free medicine and counseling at the clinic have been able to maintain their jobs because of their free care.
    “We are the only free mental health service in the city or the county of Schenectady,” he said. The clinic is currently treating 250 mental health patients.
    Council President Margaret King said after the meeting that she was moved by the speeches — but that $15,000 is all the city can afford.
    Because of the somewhat arcane rules for spending CDBG money, the city could not simply add funding for the clinic, even though it got a $110,000 increase in aid just days before Monday’s vote. ............>>>>>.........http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar01003

Ok, so we are giving free food through food stamps. We have the city mission. Salvation army. The Bethesda house. Lunches all summer at the city parks. Churches. And the food pantry. FREE? Hardly..we, who work, are paying for it.

Get up off your a**, get a job (if you can find one) and support yourself and your family. I believe that is called personal responsibility. Become your own mommy and daddy and stop relying on Mr. & Mrs. Government.

And it would clearly help, if our government officials would 'lower' the government handouts.

Quoted Text

SCHENECTADY
Donations helping SICM meet needs
Food pantry able to assist more people seeking help due to economic troubles
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter
Reach Gazette reporter Kathleen Moore at 395-3120 or moore@dailygazette.com.

    In some ways, this has been the worst year ever for the Schenectady Inner City Ministry. Need was up more than 27 percent in 2008, and leaped another 20 percent this year, with so many hungry residents lining the sidewalk that the pantry expanded its hours and twice expanded its food offerings.
    But it’s also been a surprisingly good year — because donors have flooded the pantry with enough money to help every new face.
    “People have been very generous, so we’ve been able to keep pace with the need,” said the Rev. Phillip Grigsby, executive director of SICM. “Need is still rising … but people have really responded.”
    With the economic downturn hurting nearly everyone — with layoffs, reduced hours or a freeze on raises — those who can still give have focused their donations on “basic human needs,” Grigsby said.
    It’s not just residents. General Electric decided late last year to double its donation match for agencies trying to feed the hungry or shelter the homeless. GE is matching all of its employees’ SICM donations at a rate of $2 for every $1 donated.
    And on Wednesday, the news got better — just as Grigsby was calculating yet another monthly increase in need, he learned that BJ’s had tripled its grant to the food pantry.
    Last year, BJ’s gave $5,000. This year, it’s $15,000.
    Considering that the pantry buys food at a rate of 16 cents per pound, that’s a lot of groceries.
    “This was a dramatic increase,” Grigsby said. “We’re very glad for the amount.”
    BJ’s spokeswoman Susan Brink said the company was moved by the pantry’s tremendous increase in visitors desperate for a bag of food. The pantry now feeds 350 families and serves more than 340,000 meals a year.
    “There is such a need that we were happy to do what we could,” Brink said. “We wish we could do more.”
    So much money is flowing in that SICM is now doing well financially — but the agency still needs volunteers who can give their time, Grigsby said. .............>>>>...............>>>>.............http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r01402&AppName=1