Longer lines, food limits and federal restriction: Nonprofits struggle to keep up as hunger grows

Julie Croston The Cambridge Community Center limits what customers can take home from its food pantry and still empties out within an hour, organizers say.

On a 95-degree day, Vera (not her real name) wears a dark pink T-shirt with her hair pulled back, dressed for work. She has been pulled from her volunteer job sorting and stacking boxes of food to talk to Cambridge Day, obviously disrupting the flow of action. About a dozen people – mostly volunteers, a few staff – are moving fast. They bustle in and out of a double doorway bringing groceries to folding tables arranged in a ring for maximum efficiency. Some bring boxes of food indoors instead. A mountain of banana boxes is just inside the doorway, slightly in the way of people coming and going. Also sheltering from the heat is a line