Lack of volunteers, low funds and high demands have hit local local non-profit agencies like an epidemic.
And the bug has bitten Rowan Helping Ministries hard.
“We are in desperate need of more funds, and we need volunteers as soon as yesterday,” said Executive Director Dianne Scott.
As an example, she said 82 families came to the local relief agency last Tuesday.
“Before last week, we were averaging 38 families a day, and last year, our average was 25 families.”
Though the agency opens at 9 a.m., people looking for help start lining up at the building at 226 N. Long St. at 8 a.m.
In Cabarrus County, Cooperative Christian Ministries in Concord is seeing a similar increase in the number of people walking through its doors, Executive Director Betty Jean Prewitt said.
In October, the ministry helped 885 Cabarrus County residents, 221 of them first-time clients. That’s up 33 percent over the number of new clients applying for aid in October.
The ministry on Country Club Drive was so busy Tuesday morning, Prewitt couldn’t find a space in the parking lot.
“Our concern is, if it keeps up at this rate, how are we going to continue to help folks as we have in the past?” Prewitt said. Prewitt said the increasing numbers are due to job losses in part, but can mainly be linked to local companies putting their workers on short time. She said some companies that have never cut workers’ hours are doing so now.
Cooperative Christian Ministries has food for its pantry — donations pick up during the holiday season — but the Metrolina Food Bank in Charlotte has parked its mobile pantries until next year because of a shortage there.
What the organization really needs now is money, Prewitt said, to help struggling families pay rent, utilities and medical bills, and to run its night shelter and soup kitchen. The ministry holds its annual fund-raising drive throughout December and normally collects about a third of its $600,000 yearly budget during the month.
“I’d be crying wolf if I said they’re not coming in,”Prewitt said of pledges. “We don’t know yet.”
In Salisbury, Scott said the agency has doubled the financial assistance it offers needy families, from $50 to $100, and the agency’s food pantry is giving out at least 1,000 pounds of food daily.
“We’ve never experienced such an overflow of demand before,” she said. “And with only four to five volunteers working in the morning until noon and two to three volunteers helping out from noon to close, we are having a hard time processing applications.”
Five additional volunteers who could work all day long — or even a couple of hours a day — would help tremendously.
Volunteers for the ministry are needed for helping with interviewing applicants, packing grocery bags, stocking groceries on the shelves, sorting clothes and doing paperwork.
“We don’t have a staff on board because we would have to pay them the money that we could use to help the families, and we want to make that our last resort.” Scott said.
Rowan Helping Ministries and other Rowan non-profits are seeing people laid off jobs. Some have found other jobs but at much lower pay.
Scott said she appreciates what the community, individuals, and churches have done for the Helping Ministries, but the needs are great.
“I truly understand what the other non-profit agencies are going through, but for the sake of asking, I am asking for more support to help out these families who are in need.”
Besides the $100 in financial aid, qualifying families can apply for two other government-funded programs, Scott said.
The Crisis Intervention Program offers assistance to families experiencing a crisis with at least one small child in the household. The Emergency Assistance Funds also are available to families in crisis who are caring for children younger than 2 or an elderly person.
“A crisis has to be more than just not having the money to pay their power bill,” Scott said. “They have to have received an eviction notice or cut off notice.”
This year, Helping Ministries received $127,000 in Emergency Assistance Funds, $6,000 less than last year. And the Crisis Intervention Program funding dropped dramatically — from $318,000 last year to $66,000 this year.
“I know I keep saying it, but I can’t stress how much we are in great need of help,” Scott said. “Any way people can help, and that’s through donating money or volunteering, words couldn’t express how grateful we would be and our clients would be.”
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