WASHINGTON – A slowing economy and rising food prices have sent more families to food banks seeking assistance with groceries, The Washington Post reports. Food-assistance charities find their shelves are barer and that there is an increase in the number of those in need.

Even in the more affluent areas of the United States, food banks are feeling the pinch. For example, in Northern Virginia, the Arlington Food Assistance Center has helped a record 868 families thus far in 2008 – up from 710 families in 2007.

In Maryland, Manna Foods Center assisted 1,600 families in 2007, while it has served 2,100 families this year. “We are seeing numbers we have never seen” in our 25-year history, said Amy Gabala, Manna’s executive director.

Across the nation, the need for food assistance during the past year has risen 30 percent, said Maura Daly, a lobbyist for America’s Second Harvest, a Chicago-based hunger-relief charity. The organization sends food to about 200 food banks in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. “Food banks are living on the edge of catastrophe,” she said.

Rising costs of energy, fuel and food have food banks across the country struggling to pay their bills and help those in need. For example, The Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida has a fleet of eight trucks to pick up and drop off food across the state, but with diesel fuel reaching $4 a gallon, the charity shells out $680 to fill one tractor-trailer tank.

“If that truck doesn’t roll, the food doesn’t go,” said Dave Krepcho, executive director of Second Harvest. “I’ve been in food banking for 16 years, and outside of disaster relief assistance, I’ve never seen anything like what’s going on. It’s the cost of gas, the cost of food, and there’s no such thing as affordable housing anymore.”

Contributing to the stress on food banks are declining donations from farmers, who are selling more products overseas, and grocery stores, which have tighter inventory controls that means less leftover food for donation.