On a rainy Monday morning the waiting room at Maple Valley Food Bank and Emergency Services is full as clients hang onto numbers, sit in hard plastic chairs and wait their turn.

As the economy sunk the demand for services went up while the support went down, explained Lila Henderson, executive director of the food bank.

The food bank’s fiscal year ends in June, Henderson said, and at the end of 2009 the nonprofit had been “bombarded” with a 51 percent increase in clients.

Not only do clients get to pick up food there, the emergency services part of the name also includes assistance with paying bills like rent and utilities, so the need for services has been not just for food but to keep a roof overhead and the lights on, too.

As of June this year, the increase was 7 percent, which seems slight compared to 2009.

“We’re going up a bit, but, it’s not anything like the numbers we’d previously seen,” Henderson said. “So, now we’re trying to maintain at the higher numbers. Donations, they are down a bit. What we really need to get out to people is what we’re seeing is a trend of not as much giving. With the economy, people are feeling it on all levels.”

Henderson said donations for the organization’s back to school backpack program for children was down noticeably this year from last and as a result, “we’re getting really nervous about Christmas.”

It’s important, Henderson said, for community support to increase at least enough to help maintain the level of assistance the food bank is providing now, but she knows it’s tough.

As the holiday season approaches, the spirit of giving ramps up, and Henderson hopes residents in Covington, Maple Valley, Black Diamond and surrounding unincorporated areas will step up to help their neighbors.

“These next two months are when we get the bulk of our food and financial donations to sustain us,” she said.

Last year the food bank provided gifts to 1,109 children and Henderson expects the need to go up some. In addition, they provided 1,091 meals for Thanksgiving and Christmas combined.

There are a number of sites where donations can be dropped off with the primary locations being the Covington Library and MultiCare in Covington, the Maple Valley Library and the Greater Maple Valley Community Center.

Financial donations, Henderson said, actually go further than donations of food or new, unwrapped gifts for infants to teens up to 15.

This will help the people who are struggling, Henderson said, with the face of the food bank’s clients changing over the past year.

“I’ve seen more men using our lines, fathers, I think maybe because it’s mom who has kept her job and it’s him walking through the door because he lost his job and he’s trying to make sure the kids get fed,” she said. “That’s an interesting change we’re seeing. Another thing that’s kind of a misconception of people who use the food bank is that someone has done something wrong, that they’ve put themselves in this situation.”

The reality, Henderson explained, is that a significant percentage of the clients are there because they were laid off work, aren’t working enough or are working for low wages or are on a fixed income such as disability who have been “hit really hard (by the economy) and maybe they’ve hung on for a while.”

“We are starting to see returning clients whom we hadn’t seen for five, six, seven years,” she said. “They’re coming back because they were among the first wave of layoffs. If you think about people you know, somebody knows everybody who has been affected.”

With the increase in clients, there are longer lines, Henderson added.

“Who wants to sit here for food for two hours,” she said. “Most people would rather go to a grocery store and shop with their own money.”

Those who are struggling to make ends meet, particularly parents, are doing it though.

Henderson said Northwest Harvest came out earlier this year and did a focus group with about 20 of the food bank’s clients to talk to them about food and security.

The clients were asked, “Have you changed your eating habits?”

One client said, “I make sure my kids eat first.”

Another explained that vegetables are too expensive now and one added, “There’s never enough meat when you have kids.”

“I work at a fast food restaurant, so we mostly eat fast food because it’s free,” a client said.

The focus group was asked how they are making it now and clients said they lean on their friends, eat a lot of potatoes and pasta, barter, and “do what we can with what we’ve got.”

Henderson said she found the responses to the questions telling.

“It really paints a picture of who our clients are,” she said.

For more information log onto www.maplevalleyfoodbank.org.