In the corner at Penn House, a few spare boxes of food sit stacked along a wall.

“A few years ago, that whole wall would have been full of boxes,” said Andy Brown, Penn House director.

But now, with only a few cases of tuna and juice left at the food security distribution center at 1035 Pa., Lawrence’s poor and elderly will leave empty-handed when they show up next week looking for something to eat.

“We know we’re going to have little old ladies asking where their food is,” Brown said.

Because of drastic changes in food surpluses – depleting state food coffers by more than $1.5 million in edibles since 2004 – Penn House and other local food suppliers will for the first time not offer handouts this month.

In the last two years, state officials say the federal program intended to help the poor and elderly with monthly food has sharply declined – and they’re not sure why.

Every year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture offers the state excess food commodities, typically from farmers or suppliers. The program is intended to supplement welfare and other food assistance.

But since 2002, the amount of supplemental food entering the state has dropped by more than 50 percent. In 2005, the state only received 2.1 million pounds of food compared with 5.5 million pounds in 2002, according to state data.

A small pile of canned goods are the only food commodities at Penn House, 1035 Pa., as volunteer Marjorie Ray sorts clothes Tuesday. Penn House and other assistance agencies have canceled this month's food distribution.

“It’s the amount we get, and we’re getting less of those offers,” Hamilton said.

Since the program’s peak supply of $4 million in food in 2003, the availability of surplus federal food has plummeted, Hamilton said, to just $1.1 million this year.

That means the regional food supply site at a warehouse in Ottawa has slowly emptied, said Jim Baze, commodity director for ECKAN.

The warehouse gets shipments about every three months. But with the shortage, some of the 31 area suppliers that get their food from Ottawa only have enough to hand out food for two months, Baze said.

“On the third month, we rarely have enough to bridge us to the next month,” he said.

That means only one of the 13 ECKAN sites and home-delivery services in Douglas County will hand out food this month. On average, about 300 people per month rely on the food in Douglas County.

The lack of foodstuffs came as quite a surprise to Penn House, Brown said.

He’s noticed supplies slipping lately, but the organization never canceled a monthly food pickup.

The last food delivery came in August. That month, Brown followed the state guidelines for how much food to give out: A four-person household receives two 18-ounce cans of peanut butter and three 2-pound packages of rice, for example.

But the guidelines, established during food surpluses in 2001, overshot supply. Brown said he quickly realized Penn House wouldn’t have enough.

“What we had remaining wasn’t a whole lot of food,” Brown said.

So rather than hand out a tiny amount of food in both September and October, Brown decided to hand out what the agency could last month and cancel the planned Oct. 19 distribution at Penn House.

Brown said the situation was a problem, and that maybe local service providers needed to be more vocal when asking for assistance from state and federal officials.

“There’s definitely an issue,” Brown said. “We might have to squeak a little louder to make sure the wheels turn.”

But Hamilton from SRS said that he didn’t have much control over the supply and demand of farmers and producers. The USDA only offers the state what food it has – which, lately, hasn’t been much.

“The good times are great,” Hamilton said. “But then expectations get high and some people end up unhappy.”