Charitable Groups' Emphasis on the Holidays:

An Interview with Dana Earibaron

Aired November 23, 1999

David C. Barnett–The holiday season brings with it a lot of temporary jobs, and also, a lot of temporary humanitarian instincts. That's why the Salvation Army bell ringers start to appear outside of grocery stores this time of year. Such charitable groups put an emphasis on the holidays to help sustain them during the rest of the year. Joining us with a perspective on that is Dana Earibaron, executive director of the Hunger Network of Greater Cleveland. Thanks for joining us this morning.

Dana Earibaron–Thanks for having me.

DCB–Welcome back to our microphones. The holiday season, I guess, cuts both ways for you. I mean, you get more donations, but even more is needed because of the cold weather.

DE–Right. In November-December, there's 34 pantries and 16 hot meal programs we operate. We see an increase in demand of about 10%, it has to do with increaed utility cost for households, with finding and securing clothing for their children, cold-weather clothing, and just trying to figure out what to do about the holidays. For a low-income family that doesn't have food at the end of every month, the end of the month in November is Thanksgiving, the end of the month in December is Christmas, and so it's a challenge for them. Where they might not have used the center every single month in the year, they will come back in November and December looking for at least to have a decent meal on those holidays.

DCB–What's the worst time for you during the winter season, is it just past the holidays, say during the dog days of February when everyone loses all that holiday good spirits, and that sort of thing?

DE–Right, yeah, well, the Hunger Network is in a fundraising campiagn right now. We try to raise the money for November, December, and January because the donations will drop off in January, and then we'll look at the late winter months as pretty bleak in terms of donations.

DCB–Under your purview, are what we call hunger centers and soup kitchens. What are the differences?

DE–Hunger centers give out groceries. We provide a three-day supply of groceries, packed according to family size for families that are eligible, they can get that once a month. Hot meals, you go to the church, sit down, and eat, we sort of call it "on-site eating." You bring your children in, they sit down, and then you have to wlak and take them home, and they'll get that one meal that night. Soup kitchens operate generally at the end of the month, some are doing one day a week, and the pantries are open a minimum of three days a week, two hours a day, year-round, so these programs are there, every single month of the year, and volunteers are in there all year long, working on a daily basis, making sure these programs are available for families who are in need.

DCB–The welfare rolls have dramatically dropped over the past couple of years. Have you seen an accompanying drop in the need for your services?

DE–No. We have seen it stay about the same, we've had from the early '90s, during the recession, we had a huge peak, about an average of 57,000 people per month, but to illustrate, last November and December, we served 50,000 and 55,000 families, so during the holiday time, we're still seeing very little change compared to what we saw in the years before welfare reform.

DCB–Why do you suppose that is, are there still people hanging on and cheating the system?

DE–I don't think so, I think the reality is that a lot of people have low income positions, that they know the centers are there, and they can rely on it for their children. We feed about an average of 45,000 people per month in all the programs during the other parts of the year, and about half of them are children, so if you're part-time working, low income working full time, if you're on some benefit program or a combination of benefits and employment, you'll still need the services and there's no reason why we would turn those people down.

DCB–If people want more information on your service, where do they get it? What's the phone number?

DE–If they need food, they first call for help, they can call the Hunger Network at 619-8155, area code is 216.

DCB–What about nif someone wants to help volunteer, something like that?

DE–OK, well, the reality with colunteering during the holidays is that we are pretty much filled up. The 16 hot meal programs have already arranged for their service on Thanksgiving Day and on Christmas Day, and so you get a lot of volunteers, people who want to volunteer one time a year coming in, calling in now.

DCB–So maybe the time they should do it is towards February or something like that.

DE–They can do it during February, they can volunteer at the end of the month, in the evening or on Saturday at these hot meal programs year-round, but right now we've got plenty of folks out there.

DCB–Dana Earibaron is the executive director of the Hunger Network of Greater Cleveland. Thanks for joining us this morning.

DE–Thank you for having me.