[Editor's Commentary: Instead of using the news photo that accompanies this article, I have used this 1933 image from our media library to make a point. If we don't take back Congress this November, I fear this country may be headed for another Depression. No matter what the polls say this fall, you must vote in this election and bring as many conservative voters with you as you can.]
~~John Cronin~~
By: Mike Averill Tulsa World Staff Writer
Iron Gate was forced to suspend its food box distribution program Friday morning due to a large, misinformed crowd.
The line started forming at 6:30 a.m. outside the food pantry, located on the south side of Trinity Episcopal Church, 501 S. Cincinnati Ave.
“We estimate there were 2,000 people here this morning,” said Connie Cronley, executive director. “The heat, the crowd and the incorrect information they have received rendered, in my judgment, a situation that was unsafe.”
Cronley attributed the crowd to false information sent via group e-mails and Facebook regarding supplemental food boxes, 30-pound food boxes paid for by a $2 million federal stimulus grant to the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma.
“It’s like a bad version of the old telephone game in which children whisper a sentence to one another and it is passed around a circle. At the end, the sentence is not recognizable,” Cronley said.
The message that was circulating was that the food boxes were free for anyone, however they’re actually restricted to families with children younger than 18 and there is an income restriction as well.
Through the program families can receive one 30-pound food box for each child and one box for every two adults. Families also receive one household box (toilet paper, soap, shampoo, toothpaste) for every two people younger than the age of 18 in the household. Families may receive these boxes each week.
Iron Gate receives 250 food boxes and 125 household boxes each week that it distributes Fridays and Saturdays in conjunction with its regular grocery distribution program. The program runs through September.
In June it distributed 382 food boxes and 191 household boxes and these served 165 adults and 217 children.
Cronley said distribution should resume in a few weeks once a better system is in place.
“The need seems to be overwhelming, not only in Tulsa but in the surrounding towns. We need to figure out how to better distribute these boxes. Other agencies are sending people to us for food,” she said.
Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=17&articleid=20100723_11_0_IronGa403000&rss_lnk=1
