Charities seeing increased demand for help

St. Paul, Minn. — With the holiday season in full swing, many area food pantries and social service organizations are seeing increased demand for help.

Rebecca Lentz, a spokeswoman for Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, says demand for emergency food, shelter and other services is much higher this year than in recent years.

"More and more they have people coming in looking for assistance with buying food," says Lentz. "To us, $10 worth of groceries isn't much, but when we give them a $10 gift certificate to Cub it means the world to them."

She says Catholic Charities is on target to meet the need this year, but as demand continues to increase, the group could be facing a funding shortfall.

Lentz says the increased demand could be caused by the high rate of home foreclosures currently hitting the metro area.