By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — The number of Arkansans receiving emergency food assistance has increased 49 percent since 2006, according to a report released today.

The report by the hunger-relief network Feeding America, titled “Hunger in America 2010,” states that 433,900 Arkansans now receive food assistance annually through the nation’s network of food banks and the agencies they serve. A 2006 report set the number at 291,500.

Nationwide, 37 million people, or one in eight Americans — including 14 million children and nearly 3 million seniors — now receive emergency food, a 46 percent increase since 2006.

“We knew the numbers were going to go up with the recession. We have 78 percent of our pantries telling us they are seeing increases, which is many more than told us in 2006,” Rhonda Sanders, executive director of the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance, said at a news conference in Little Rock.

But Sanders said the good news is that “our food banking and charitable food system in our state are getting better and better at what they do, at serving the people who are in need. So not only have we increased, but we are providing for many more, and that is thanks to so many people here in our state who care about the hungry.”

Phyllis Haynes, executive director of the Arkansas Foodbank Network, said the 400 agencies the network serves in central and southern Arkansas are providing food to 166,200 people a year, up 11 percent from four years ago.

“Thirty-five percent of these clients served in our 33-county area are children under the age of 18, and 8 percent of them are under the age of 5,” Haynes said. “Eight percent of the people served in our 33 counties are elderly, and 27 percent, more than one out of every four households, who comes to a pantry, shelter or soup kitchen has a working, employed member in their household.”

Seventy-eight percent of the people receiving emergency food from the Arkansas Food Network live below the federal poverty level, she said.

Haynes said the increased need is being met thanks to the work of the state Legislature’s Hunger Caucus, which has provided grant money; the network’s partnership the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance; and the generosity of the public.

Sanders said most of the Hunger Relief Alliance’s agencies across the state have reported that more people are donating, though the donations tend to be in smaller amounts, presumably because of tough economic times.

Sanders was asked why the state as a whole has seen a 49 percent increase in people receiving emergency food while the Arkansas Foodbank Network’s service area of central and southern Arkansas has only seen an 11 percent increase. She said other parts of the state may have seen more people seeking help for the first time.

“I think some of the areas like Northwest Arkansas that saw the huge increases were some of the areas that saw some of the hugest layoffs and loss of jobs,” she said. “The southern part of the state, while they had issues around those areas, it also includes more counties and areas that have chronic poverty, so they are repeating, continued users of the charitable food system.”