Beefing-up supplies at the Community Connection-operated Wallowa County Food Bank has become, fittingly, a community-wide effort this holiday season, continuing a trend that existed before the Great Recession struck but that may have accelerated since.

Service clubs, churches, financial institutions and other private businesses (this newspaper included) are among numerous entities that have undertaken food collection drives. In related cases, businesses and groups that aren’t overseeing multi-week drives themselves are nonetheless producing a significant impact with spot events, in which food donations are the only recognized currency for participation or admission.

Carolyn Pfeaster, the county’s manager for Community Connection since 1992, says she doesn’t even try to keep tabs on all the various collection efforts going on right now. She and others at the program are just glad for the deliveries of donations, whoever brings them.

Of course, if anyone cares to define a “high season” for food donations, the holiday season is certainly it. Pfeaster concedes that the activity falls off rather abruptly around the first of the year. This is all the more reason for people to donate now, while the opportunities are directly in our daily paths. A strong seasonal effort can help prepare the food bank for the ensuing winter months, when demand for its goods will hardly ebb.

Historically, winter has been the predictably lean period for many of the area’s households, whose basic financial goal is to reach spring still intact. Initially, the phenomenon reflected logging’s slow season. Today, it’s connected more to the seasonal drop-off in tourism. Unfortunately, a preponderance of tourism’s seasonal layoffs are from jobs whose paycheck figures pale next to the amounts our blue-collar resource workers once earned here (adjusting for inflation).

So with changing times has come a local economy transformed, and not necessarily for the better. If anything, winter is now an even leaner financial period for too many of our citizens. The Great Recession has only exacerbated the problem, making the food bank’s role more critical than ever.

“I can’t just imagine in this economy that the need will go down,” Pfeaster said.

For the latest July-through-October period, the program saw its outgoing food boxes increase 9 percent as compared to the same three-month period in 2010. The households it served were larger, on average holding 11 percent more people.

Although the program asks people to try to limit their food pickups to twice per month, Pfeaster says this is merely a request. “We have never turned anybody away,” she said.

The food bank has also changed its message with regard to food stamps. Years ago, Pfeaster said, the program asked people to use their food stamps before visiting the food bank. Now the advice is just the opposite: People should use the food bank first. That way, they won’t waste stamps purchasing items the food bank could have provided.

One thing hasn’t changed: need is always great for personal care items – for example, baby diapers, laundry soap, toilet paper and shampoo – which food stamps cannot buy.

Pfeaster lauds Wallowa County citizens for their generosity. We’d like to second that sentiment. And while we’re at it, here’s a reminder that the Chieftain office will be accepting food donations for the food bank until Jan. 28, 2012.