As a result, food pantry workers say, people in need are getting fewer provisions and less variety, and some pantries have been forced to open less frequently.
Pantry workers also say they are sporadically seeing white-collar workers who cannot keep up with expenses after losing a job.
Last week the shelves were full, but Mr. Brown and other pantry workers said they were stripped bare in the days after Thanksgiving.
Tampa International Airport is working with local partners to launch a food pantry for federal workers starting Monday.
In Ogden, Catholic Community Services of Northern Utah has opened its food pantry to federal workers affected by the shutdown, waiving the regular poverty-level income requirements.
This is the second year in a row that the Canton store has compiled a food pantry for its own workers.
Community action agencies like ABCD are not generally well known but they serve as a lifeline, all across the country, to poor individuals and families who desperately need the assistance provided by food pantries, homeless shelters, workers who visit the homebound elderly, and so forth.
In November, before the police crackdown, a group of volunteers, including a public health worker, a food pantry organizer and a substance abuse counselor who had previously been a street minister, circled up around the trunk of Harvey's car in the half-light.
In collaboration with the HELP DESK at the Open Arms Food Pantry in Huntsville, Arkansas, Wheels for Workers will provide transportation assistance to employed people.
A worker at the food pantry told me that, after being a regular attendee for years, she had not come to the LeHigh Avenue site since the end of December, 2011).
