Gas, food prices hurting agencies' ability to deliver social services

Published: 2008-05-02

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The congregants prayed at a gas station one block from their church, appealing to God for lower gasoline prices. But with the relentless climb in gas prices -- topping, in late April, the $3.50 mark nationwide for regular unleaded for the first time -- perhaps an exorcism is more in order. Members of the First Seventh-day Adventist Church in Washington conducted their "pray-down" April 24, because the volunteers at a four-times-weekly soup kitchen in the church basement are themselves feeling the pinch of higher fuel costs. One volunteer said she's stopped driving to the church and instead takes two buses, even though it lengthens her commute by 45 minutes each way. The rising prices for both fuel and food are hurting the delivery of social services both at the church level and at the diocesan level. Catholic Charities in Jacksonville, Fla., runs a food bank and sometimes gets food supplies delivered from Miami. But trucking companies have been turning down Catholic Charities requests to bring food north unless Catholic Charities can assure them of a return payload to Miami.

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