By Andrea Pettes
 
November 19, 2008
 
MEDFORD, Ore. -- Next week many families will prepare their Thanksgiving feasts, but hundreds of Southern Oregon families will rely on others for their holiday dinners.
 
The amount of food available at food banks, ACCESS and the Salvation Army is at an all time low, creating concern for how many people will get a holiday meal this year.
 
Hundreds of kids at McLoughlin Middle School spent the last several weeks rounding up thousands of cans of canned food. This year the school is seeing a 25 percent increase in the number of cans it's giving to the Salvation Army, but not all food drives are ending with this type of success.
 
In previous years more than 15 Boy Scout troops have donated food, this year, only three. Other middle schools saw a 45 percent decrease in the amount of food it donated from their food drives.
 
"The Boy Scouts and the schools are the ones we really relied on, so with the fact that they are down, we are looking into other areas to bring food in," says Salvation Army Development Director Jackie Agee.
 
The decreasing supply is simply increasing the demand. The Salvation Army is expecting a record breaking turnout for families who need the holiday aid.
 
"We had over 200 people, actually over 200 families to sign up, it was a mad house, last year, total, we had 700 families. Right now we have more than 500 families with three more weeks to go out and sign up," says Agee.