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The numbers told the story, plain enough. Speaking on the topic, "Feeding the Hungry in Our Community," Kathleen DiChiara, executive director of the Community Food Bank of New Jersey, doled out an abundance of sorry statistics that all pointed to the same conclusion.

Record volumes of people are lining up at New Jersey shelters and soup kitchens to get their daily intake of survival rations, DiChiara told a small group assembled last month at Congregation B'nai Jacob, Jersey City, for its Speaker Series program.

Cantor Marsha Dubrow, spiritual leader of the West Side congregation, said that B'nai Jacob was using the occasion as an opportunity to launch a food drive, as part of an interfaith initiative with the Ecclesia Ministeria Church, in residence at B'nai Jacob.

"What's happening in Jersey City is happening across the state," DiChiara said.

To prove her point, DiChiara cited excerpts from "Hunger in America 2010: The N.J. State Report," based on the information collected by the New Jersey Federation of Food Banks, which includes DiChiara's Hillside-based agency, and its southern branch, the FoodBank of Monmouth and Ocean Counties, the Food Bank of South Jersey, Mercer Street Friends Food Bank and NORWESCAP Food Bank.

Representatives of those food banks -- which solicit, receive, inventory, and distribute donated food and grocery products to emergency food providers such as pantries, shelters, and soup kitchens -- interviewed more than 1,000 clients at emergency food programs and collated the results of questionnaires filled out by about the same number of food service agencies.

These were some of the resulting findings:
--An estimated 830,200 people a year are getting emergency food assistance in New Jersey -- a 45 percent increase since 2006.
--Of those people receiving the emergency food packages, 42 percent have children under age 18 as part of their households.
--Only 4 percent of those client households are homeless and 34 percent include at least one employed adult.
--Nearly half of the clients have to decide "between paying for food and paying for utilities or heating fuel."
--Nearly half had to choose "between paying for food and paying their rent or mortgage."
--For 34 percent, it was a toss-up between paying for food or medicine or medical care.

Last year, DiChiara said, Community Food Bank of New Jersey distributed 33.5 million pounds of food and groceries to 800 emergency food service providers in all but three counties throughout the state.

One of the client agencies serviced by DiChiara's group is the emergency food pantry maintained by Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Jersey City and Sister Alice McCoy, who runs the pantry, was among those attending the B'nai Jacob program.

"Since the beginning of the economic downturn, the need for our food pantry in the community has tripled," Sister Alice said.

Nearly 600 families comprising about 1,100 adults and children, along with about 200 individuals, received help from the OLS pantry during 2009, according to pantry records. About one out of three families had children under age 18.

Many families are in need of cheaper housing but, according to Sister Alice's research, "there's a 10-year waiting list in Jersey City to get into the federal Section 8 subsidy rental program.

Cantor Dubrow credited DiChiara and Sister Alice for heightening community awareness of the plight so many hungry people are facing in a tough economy.

"We all have a collective responsibility to take care of our needy brothers and sisters, irregardless of religion, race, or ethnicity," Dubrow said.

And so, Dubrow said, "As we begin a new secular year and the second decade of the 21st century... we find we are still dealing with a world filled with hungry people. Given the billions available in our society to bail out the bad boy banks or, as our president has called them, 'the fat cats,' it's hard to believe that people both here in America and around the globe are still starving."

Dubrow quoted a recent report from Mathematica Policy Research, a Princeton-based think tank, which estimated that more than 7 million Americans rely on emergency food assistance every week.

As Jews recently observed the holidays of Tu b'Shevat, marking the first fruits in Israel and renewal of life, and of Purim, Dubrow said, "It is an especially good time to reach out to those right in our midst who are less fortunate than we are."

To that end, she said, "I am encouraging everyone to bring canned food to the synagogue (at 176 West Side Ave., Jersey City) so that we may make a food donation as a congregation to one of our local Jersey City food banks."

Dubrow added: "There is a rabbinic teaching that we should give gifts... not only to our friends and families, but also to those who are needy and to those whose spirits would be raised by knowing that someone cares."

For more information, people may call the synagogue at (201) 435-5725 or visit www.bnaijacobjc.org.