It's a sign of the economic slowdown.Loaves and Fishes, the emergency food program in Powell, is seeing a tremendous influx of people at its food pantry in the Park County Annex building.“In the first 10 days of December, we had about 45 families with 140 people come to the pantry for help,” said Cindy Balderas, director of Loaves and Fishes.

For the full month of December, Loaves and Fishes helped 79 families with 247 family members.

“Ever since the fall, we've been seeing more people,” Balderas said.

In September, 77 families with 261 people were assisted at the pantry. In October, the numbers helped at the pantry were 77 families and 158 people. In November, 74 families with 235 people came to the pantry.

“This is an increase from a year ago when we were seeing on average about 60 families,” Balderas said.

During the holidays, the food pantry also issues “meat coupons” to families. The $10 coupons can be redeemed at IGA or Blair's as $10 toward the purchase of meat products. Loaves and Fishes gave out 18 meat coupons at Thanksgiving and another 48 at Christmastime.

“I go through the tickets as they come back from the stores, and people were using them to bargain shop for meat,” Balderas said.

“Instead of applying the coupons toward a ham or a turkey, people were super shopping for hamburger or roasts and other meat products, which is awesome.”

Loaves and Fishes is buying a lot of groceries these days.

“We try to buy everything we can locally, but there are some things that we can't get,” said Balderas. “We've been running back and forth to Casper to the Food Bank of the Rockies.”

Coming out of the holiday season, the Loaves and Fishes checkbook has been replenished through the giving of others. The Park County Commission made an $8,000 donation to the program, and there were other significant contributions as well.

Elaine DeBuhr and her Northwest College pottery classes raised $4,400 for Loaves and Fishes with their “Empty Bowls” project before Thanksgiving. Aramark provides soup for the evening at cost.

Pamida makes an annual Christmas donation to Loaves and Fishes, and this year it amounted to $2,000. Local church congregations also collected offerings for Loaves and Fishes through the Christmas season.

“We're sitting pretty well right now, and we're going to spread the money as far as we can,” said Balderas.

One purchase Loaves and Fishes intends to make is a beef.