Economy
More Americans Are Going Hungry in the Suburbs
As poverty and hunger spread, charities must figure out how to serve dispersed pockets of need.
On a Tuesday in late November, the food pantry People to People is bustling with volunteers, donors, and clients. No sooner has one family lowered a turkey and a cartful of yellow-bagged groceries into the trunk of a car than another follows suit. The parking lot is full.
It would not be an unusual scene for a food pantry in the run-up to Thanksgiving, except that People to People is in Rockland County, New York, a bedroom community near the nation’s largest city and one of the top 40 counties in the United States in household income.