"People find it an amazing oxymoron — McLean in hunger," said Therese Dyer-Caplan, vice president of Share Inc., the charitable organization that serves the McLean and Great Falls area.

In late April, the Connection ran a story about the difficulties Share was experiencing in meeting unusually high demands. Since then, the organization’s pantries have been filled by Boy Scout and Post Office food drives, only to promptly be emptied. Shelves in the reserve pantry are now almost entirely bare.

"There are more than 500 bags of food a month going out of here," past president Victor Kimm said. "That’s way up from previous years." Meanwhile, Dyer-Caplan said, the cost of each of those bags has gone up due to rising food prices.

Two years ago, a busy day at Share’s food pantry meant serving about seven families, said Dyer-Caplan. Last Wednesday, 21 families showed up. She said users of the pantry have learned they need to get there early if they want hard-to-come-by items like detergent. "Every time I open the door, there’s a line," she said.

Kimm said usage of the food pantry is continuing to rise, with a 20 percent increase between July and August of this year.

Meanwhile, funds for Share’s family assistance program are going almost entirely toward warding off evictions and utility shut-offs, with some money paying for medications, Kimm said. In the last fiscal year, more than $102,000 was spent on family assistance, up 50 percent from the previous fiscal year.


FOOD CERTIFICATES for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter dinners were up 10 percent during the most recent holidays, and last December, the holiday gift program served 25 percent more households than previously. Those numbers are expected to rise again this year. In the summer of 2007, Share provided school supplies to 143 students. Last month, 197 students came to the organization for supplies. Kimm said this is also the first time Share has had a waiting list for furniture, and the list is growing.

He said the charity had continued to maintain the same level of service throughout the surge in demand, in part by dipping into reserve funds for the first time. He had projected a $25,000 shortfall for this fiscal year.

"People used to come here for food. Now they’re coming for everything," said Dyer-Caplan, who runs the food pantry, noting that people were asking for gas cards and pharmacy gift cards, which the pantry does not offer. She said she was also watching people make difficult choices, such as the woman who recently talked to her about weighing food against medication.

"From what I’ve read, it’s a similar situation at food banks around the country," Share President Randy Glantz said.

All the while, donations have been up.

Dyer-Caplan said the organization has been conducting aggressive outreach campaigns at local schools and churches and recently put together a PowerPoint presentation to explain its needs and services, efforts that were not necessary in years past. "The nice thing about that, though, is that this is such a generous community," she said, adding that the typical response to her appeals for help was: "We just didn’t know things were so difficult."


TEMPLE RODEF SHALOM will be making special pleas to its congregants on behalf of Share during the High Holy Days in October, and Lewinsville Presbyterian Church will be helping out, probably soliciting donations at Giant and Safeway, on Sept. 27, Dyer-Caplan said. The Share truck will be parked at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church’s Fun Fair on Sept. 20. The Women’s Club of McLean collected donations at its recent fashion show, and the Greater McLean Chamber of Commerce will be hosting a half-day program to improve communication between nonprofit organizations and McLean businesses. And Safeway, Marvelous Market and Claude Moore Farm continue to donate food. Dyer-Caplan said neighborhoods, swim teams and Girl Scouts had also been holding food drives.

Also, Glantz said, the organization has more than twice the number of people volunteering that it did a few years ago.

And Kimm said the charity had begun to work with the schools’ PTAs and community service committees.

"We’ve been talking about trying to institutionalize year-round drives for food," Glantz said, adding that a year-round approach would make sense, since it looks like the need will be year-round.