The agency served about 16,000 free meals in February, a 3 percent increase over February 2009, director Patrice Nelson said.

At the Durham County Department of Social Services, food-stamp applications are up as much as 25 percent from a year ago, said program manager Pinkie Davis-Boyd.

At the Salvation Army in Durham, despite "a very large and successful food drive" last fall by the Durham Public Schools, supplies are running low, said program director Carlene Byron.

Some say demand is down from a few months ago but remains well above what it was before the economic fall of 2008.

Urban Ministries' food and clothing closet, for example, served 321 households in February 2010, a 12.6 percent increase from the 285 of February 2009. But last June, it served about 400 - double the number of June 2008.

"There are a lot of people out there hurting," said Mike Kennedy of Mount Zion Christian Church, which operates a food pantry five days a week.

Trying to keep up

Across the Triangle, the numbers are similar.

"We're just trying to keep up," said Peter Werbicki, president and CEO of the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina.

The food bank saw its requests for food rise last year by 30 to 60 percent in the 34 counties it serves. The region mirrors national and statewide trends. More than one in seven American households struggled to put enough food on the table in 2008, the highest rate since tracking began in 1995, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report. That's about 49 million people in the country.

The need is leading more and more families to seek government assistance. The number of households in the state that rely on food stamps has increased 45 percent over the last two years. In February, 1.31 million people - more than one in seven North Carolinians - benefited from the assistance.

"We're seeing heads of households and people who have mortgages. It's a new poor," said Jill Staton Bullard, chief executive officer and co-founder of Raleigh's Inter-Faith Food Shuttle. "The new face of hunger is really an important thing to understand."

No end yet

Chris Moran doesn't want to hear the recession may be ending;

He doesn't see it at his job at southern Orange County's Inter-Faith Council for Social Service - not in the numbers of people coming in for free meals or the number of grocery bags going out to those eligible for free food.

"There are jobs being created, but I think the catch-up takes longer than they expect," said Moran, the executive director. "I worry that if people think that's true the people we work with are going to be left further behind."

And the IFC is working with more people these days.

At the end of February, 2,777 households in Chapel Hill and Carrboro were eligible for food-pantry visits every month. That was a 35 percent increase from 2,051 households a year earlier.

Meals served at the IFC's Community Kitchen, meanwhile, topped 90,000 last fiscal year, up from 87,588 the previous fiscal year.

All told, a decade-high 129,589 people in Durham, Orange, Wake and Johnston county benefitted from food assistance in February, according to the Jordan Institute for Families at UNC. That's up 19.7 percent, the biggest annual jump since 2002.

Food banks are also seeking aid, receiving thousands of pounds of food each month through the federal government's emergency food assistance program. Food donations at the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina were up 12 percent last year but Werbicki said most of that is from the federal stimulus package - a source of sustenance that won't be around forever.

'A big push'

Agencies across the region are responding in various ways:

"We've got a special challenge going on right now," said Deanna Kleiss, Urban Ministries of Durham's marketing manager. Through April, the Feinstein Foundation is matching each donation of a nonperishable food item with $1 in cash. "We're making a really big push," Kleiss said, anticipating increased demand in the summer when children are not being fed at school.

In Hillsborough, Orange Congregations in Mission raised $45,216 last year after the Stewards Fund challenged the nonprofit to raise $10,000 before receiving matching funds. "So many people were being laid-off, those who still had jobs seemed to feel obligated to help those who had lost their jobs," said Kay Stagner, manager of client services.

In Durham, students at the N.C. School of Science and Mathematics fell short of a new world record for most food collected in a single drive. But they still donated more than 400,000 pounds to the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina this month.

Attendance at Shiloh Christian Church's soup kitchen in Johnston County has increased 30 percent to about 50 people per day, according to staff. Most weekdays, a line of people wrap around the church's buildings. Chef Gwen Williams has adjusted menus as the kitchen goes through 1,600 pounds of donated beef, chicken, pork and vegetables a month.

"You just have to change how you feed," she said. "It just runs out quicker when you're feeding that many more people."