Donations to Food Banks Decline While Requests Increase

America's Second Harvest, the U.S.'s largest food bank, reports a 9% decrease in donations, while the U.S. Conference of Mayors' reports some startling statistics, including a sharp rise in requests for food:

Among the many disturbing statistics of this year's report: 25% of the residents in emergency shelters were children. One-third of hungry adults were employed. In 6%of the cities, homeless folks had to be turned away from emergency shelters due to a lack of resources. About 74% of the cities saw a marked increase (7%) in the need for emergency food assistance. Over 23% of the requests for emergency food went completely unfilled. The length of time that someone remained homeless increased in 32% of the cities.

What a small price to pay to let congress spend billions of our dollars steeling Iraq's petroleum so at least the big oil executives can keep getting fatter.