CT Food Bank in need of donations

Waterbury, Conn. (WTNH) - The Connecticut Food Bank is looking for a helping hand as the holiday season approaches.

The need has never been higher, and there has never been more of a need for volunteers at the Connecticut Food Bank.

Nancy Carrington, the Connecticut Food Bank CEO, said, "Since 2008 when the economy first took a real nose dive and there was an increase of over 30%, it just hasn't let up."

That's how high the demand has been for four straight years. More and more people are turning to food banks just to get by, and at the same time, donations from corporations are dropping.

Then there were the storms. First, Tropical Storm Irene brought down power lines mostly along the shoreline. Then the Autumn Nor'easter knocked out power just about everywhere else. That meant trouble for both food pantries, and the people who need them.

"Many programs of ours had lost power and their clientele lost power, so there was a real loss of refrigerated product," said Carrington.

The result is, it's tougher and tougher to keep the shelves of the East Haven warehouse full. That's bad news every day. But it's even worse this time of year when every family wants to gather around the table for Thanksgiving.

One way you can help is by heading to the Yale Bowl this Saturday for "fill the bowl." Bring a turkey, 10 cans of food, or a $10 donation, and you can get two tickets to the big Harvard-Yale game. Last year the food bank gave away 24,000 turkeys and 350,000 pounds of fixin's.

"Need has not gone down, so my hope is that we will have enough to at least meet that number and hopefully go a bit beyond," said Carrington.

Now some of the pallets are labeled disaster relief. They came from the federal government. Even though there are items in the warehouse, some of it can't even go out to the general public because it's slated for disaster.