Philabundance dropping milk program

Philabundance, the area's largest hunger-relief agency, will soon cut off milk to 18 after-school and day-care agencies serving 1,045 children.

In many cases, it is the only milk the children ever drink.

Philabundance blames the tough economy and a drop in food donations of as much as 20 percent over the last year for the cutoff, which is expected to save the nonprofit $200,000 annually.

"I was shocked to hear this," said Leola Highsmith, director of Grace Community Christian Center's after-school program in Germantown. "I didn't know it was happening, and it will be a hardship. My children depend on that milk. It means I'll have to pay for milk myself or ask for donations."

The end of the program comes at a time when Philabundance is trying to pay off $2 million it spent on a South Philadelphia building last October to add to its warehouse space.

Asked why the nonprofit needed a new building to store food when food donations are down, Philabundance's senior vice president, Martha Buccino, said yesterday that the space was meant to store huge shipments of produce that couldn't be housed in any other existing Philabundance facility.

Refrigerated donations are down only 2 percent, which makes the building viable for Philabundance, she said. Philabundance uses a budget of $7.2 million to provide food for 65,000 people per week through 600 agencies, according to Marlo DelSordo, communications manager.

Buccino expressed regret about curtailing the Fresh Foundations program.

"We've had to make very difficult decisions to retrench some programs," she said. "It's not easy to look people in the face and say, 'I can't give you food.' "

Typically, Philabundance delivered bread and fresh produce along with milk to the day-care and after-school agencies as part of the program.

While the milk will be eliminated, the free bread and fresh produce will still be available. But the deliveries will end Sept. 30, and representatives of the agencies will have to pick up the food themselves at Philabundance warehouses.

Officials at Philabundance say they are battling ever-increasing costs.

Milk costs $55,000, while delivery-truck and driver costs run to $38,000 a year, Buccino said. The rest of the $200,000 being saved by ending the program is taken up by labor, storage and office costs, said Melanie Jumonville, Philabundance vice president of programs.

Philabundance does not have to pay for gas for its vehicles because it's donated by Sunoco, Buccino acknowledged.

The change will shift transportation costs onto the individual agencies.

This could prove to be a hardship, because some agencies do not have access to vans or cars and must rely on public transportation to get the food.

"We do have a van, but we'll have to pay for the gas now," Highsmith said.

It was only in the last few days that the agencies received letters announcing that the program would end in two weeks.

"We didn't know anything about this, and we just renewed our contract with Philabundance," said Obiama Martin of Friends of Molly Child Care Center in South Philadelphia.

"I just found out this week," said Martha Miller, program developer of No Longer Bound Inc., which runs an after-school program for 50 children in Bristol, Bucks County. "We have no way of replacing the program."

In a series of what Buccino characterized as "breakdowns in communication," the original Philabundance letters to agencies were dated Aug. 27 but might not have been mailed until last week.

Several people who work to fight hunger in the Philadelphia area asked why Philabundance never notified or sought the help of Nutritional Development Services, the huge feeding program run by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

The program feeds 20,000 children a day, according to Anne Ayella, assistant director of NDS, who said she did not know about Philabundance's decision to curtail Fresh Foundations.

Ayella said she would contact some of the agencies to see whether she could help.

When asked why NDS wasn't enlisted to help, Buccino said, "There was a breakdown in communication here."

Yesterday, after a reporter asked why the agencies were given only a two-week warning that the 10-year-old Fresh Foundations program would be ending, Buccino said that Philabundance would send new letters saying the deadline would be extended, and that milk would be available for pickup at the warehouses until Jan. 1.

Then it will be eliminated, as planned.

Jumonville said a majority of the agencies received some federal funding for food.

But several of the agencies contacted said they depended on Philabundance for milk and other food.

"We count on Philabundance because our other funding has been cut," said Mary Ellen Dykhouse, office manager of Christ Lutheran Church's after-school program in Upper Darby.

Without milk, Dykhouse said, "we'll have to serve more protein somewhere. We'll give them peanut butter and water."