How to help
Donate online at Journal-News.com/foodrelief
Mail contributions to: Hamilton JournalNews Food Relief, P.O. Box 421545, Middletown, OH 45042-1545
Katherine Wilder handed out 200 turkeys to people in need this week as a volunteer at Family Service of Middletown.
What many don’t know is that Wilder gets food from the nonprofit agency’s pantry and relied on them, too, for the turkey and fixings she and her sons will eat for Thanksgiving dinner today.
“Without their help, it would have been pork chops or chicken, hot dogs, or pigs in a blanket. We would have had to make do,” said Wilder, 48, a soon-to-be divorced mother of three who has been unemployed since she was laid off on Christmas Eve last year.
The Middletown woman is one of thousands seeking aid at area pantries in Butler, Warren, Miami, Preble and Darke counties where demand has increased by 17 percent this year, according to Shared Harvest Foodbank, which supplies food to the pantries.
Critical to the foodbank’s ability to provide food to the pantries is the JournalNews Food Relief campaign that began Nov. 14.
Last year, the campaign raised a record $53,387 since it began in 1998.
And with rising number of struggling families, Shared Harvest Foodbank Director Tina Osso has said the foodbank will need the community’s support now more than ever.
Wilder urged residents who can donate to area pantries to give what they can.
“There’s so many people out there who are worse off than I am. I just want the community to keep the donations coming because it’s greatly appreciated.”
Job loss, family heartaches take toll
In the last two years, Katherine Wilder has lost her job, her marriage, her home and her mother and stepfather.
“I was numb,” Wilder, 48, of Middletown said.
“I was in a very, very dark place. I felt defeated, like I didn’t want to get up another day.
“But with a strong will, God, support from family and friends I’ve gotten through it,” she said.
The deaths of her mother and stepfather came after three tumultuous years that began in 2007 when she and her husband of 14 years got behind on their mortgage after their payment ballooned.
The couple separated in May 2009, months after they lost their two-story, three-bedroom home to foreclosure.
On Christmas Eve, Wilder, an administrative assistant for three years at a church she had attended for 14 years, was laid off.
With no money, and her soon-to-be ex-husband now out of work, too, Wilder was forced to seek federal assistance.
She now survives on $303 in food stamps and less than $400 a month in federal cash assistance.
She also gets help from Family Service of Middletown, where she can get groceries and personal items and where she also volunteers nearly 90 hours a month, helping other struggling families.
“I didn’t think I would ever be in this position. This isn’t supposed to be happening to me,” Wilder said. “I’ve worked all my life and now this is happening to me. It’s just overwhelming.”
Wilder admits she nearly crumbled under the weight of it all. But said her children — sons ages 13, 19 and 21 — kept her going.
She said she wants to teach her children that they can survive when life happens and everything and everyone around them appears to be against them.
“Life goes on. You have to put both feet on the ground and make it work. I do it for my son," she said of her 13-year-old son who still lives with her.
“I don’t want my son to see me give up. I don’t want him to see that.”
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