Wimauma mission grows painfully thin (desperate because donations have plummeted)

[lostnfound]

Because of the area and the reference to 'farm work', I think that many of the people who go there are actually migrant workers.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/article431514.ece

WIMAUMA — When her number was called, Rosa Villatoro pushed a stroller and grabbed her daughter's hand. She nudged through a crowd of people to a window in the back of the Good Samaritan Mission, where she was handed a bag of pinto beans, tortillas and potatoes.
"Right now we don't have any work," she said. "It's three months now with no work." Here at the mission, she can at least find food and used clothing.

But that could change. The organization that has offered a lifeline to hundreds of families every week for 24 years says it's close to shutting down, stalled in the worst economic crisis of its history.

Private donations from retirees, churches and residents from Pinellas County to Pennsylvania have dried up, Pastor William Cruz says.
Since November, some checks stopped coming. Other donors on fixed incomes or with struggling businesses wrote to apologize for reduced gifts.

• • •

In response, the mission has spent all of its reserves, liquidized two investment funds worth $19,000, changed several positions from full time to part time, and cut salaries of its 23 staffers, including Cruz.The next step: possibly eliminate low-cost day care for 50 children or the advocacy center, which offers job referrals and domestic violence counseling.

"This is the worst" crisis, Cruz said Tuesday as families queued up outside in the food and clothes lines. "It has touched so many people that have been unable to give us a hand."

[lostnfound]

1. Kick for the needy nt

[Suich]

2. Another kick. n/t