By Amy Worden

Inquirer Harrisburg Bureau

HARRISBURG - Pennsylvania residents, like most Americans, are feeling the economic pinch in more ways than one.

With the lines at soup kitchens and food banks getting longer, two state lawmakers - one from the heart of the state's dairy and vegetable belt and the other from Northwest Philadelphia - have joined forces to issue a wake-up to the General Assembly that the effects of hunger are increasingly apparent.

"Hunger is mostly a hidden problem," said State Sen. Michael Brubaker (R., Lancaster), cochair of the newly formed Hunger Caucus, which met for the first time yesterday. "Historically, not enough [lawmakers] have made it a priority."

Brubaker launched the meeting with some alarming statistics.

He said hunger nationally was at its highest level since the USDA began keeping track in 1995. In Pennsylvania, almost 10 percent of the population - 1.3 million people - is at risk of being hungry, Brubaker said.

But at the same time, he said, Pennsylvania is a world leader in food production and processing, so there is no reason for people here not to have ample food.

Brubaker said he first wanted to make sure that in a difficult budget year, funding wasn't stripped away from valuable food-distribution programs. Those include food banks and the voucher program that helped 371,000 people purchase food from 950 farmers' markets last year.

State Rep. John Myers (D., Phila.), cochair of the caucus, said he was pleased that rural and urban lawmakers, as well as members of both parties, were at last recognizing the problem.

"Hunger affects everybody," he said. "It doesn't matter what ideological or philosophical tenets are."

Kendall Hanna, director of the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank in Harrisburg, told caucus members that food banks were seeing a "precipitous" decline in donations and an "unprecedented" increase in demand.

Those seeking help, Hanna said, are no longer chronically homeless or very low-income people; they are middle- and upper-middle-income families and seniors who have fallen on hard times.

"There is a real change in the demographics," he said. "People are turning to food banks and soup kitchens who never dreamed they'd be in those circumstances."

In the Philadelphia area, demand is outstripping supply at a rapid pace.

At Philabundance, a network of 600 agencies in Southeastern Pennsylvania, the number of people seeking food assistance rose by 31 percent, according to a survey last month, and food donations were down by 26 percent.

Only nine of roughly 22 caucus members showed up for the inaugural meeting. But that doesn't bother Brubaker, who hopes he will persuade all 253 House and Senate members to join the caucus.

Brubaker proposed to hold two meetings of the Hunger Caucus per year to examine hunger issues. He also said a Hunger Caucus Web site (www.senatorbrubaker.com/hungercaucus.htm ) would be launched today to provide information on resources available to help Pennsylvanians in need.

Officials with a number of the state's food banks who attended the meeting said they were thrilled that lawmakers were taking the food crisis seriously. Said Hanna: "The fact that we have a Hunger Caucus is reason for hope."

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