Photo by B.F. Newhall

My writer colleague Laura Willis reports from Sewannee, Tennessee, that the economic crisis is hitting people pretty hard in the Southern Cumberland Plateau.

Her organization, the Community Action Committee of Otey Parish, was expecting 200 families to show up for its Second Harvest Food Bank on August 15.

Six hundred families showed up.

The CAC was able to provide groceries for 450 families — but turned away 150.

Two hundred volunteers gave away 18,000 pounds of food that day. And many families waited in line for as long as four hours.

Photographer Stephen Alvarez made a video of the hundreds of working poor standing in line. (Scroll past Alvarez’s wonderful photos to the bottom of the page to get to the video. I had to click on the hi def option to get it going.)