It’s the same story everywhere: Growing need, shrinking resources.

The social safety net is showing signs of wear and tear. The nonprofit agencies that are the last resort for many struggling families are themselves struggling.

Maggie Potter, president of the Boys & Girls Club of Skagit County, said all the safety net agencies across the country are facing the same problem. Donations and grants are harder than ever to get.

Potter said most grant requests try to convey a compelling story to the foundations. But for every grant letter she sends explaining that revenues are down and demand is up, there are hundreds of competing letters saying the same thing.

“You’re having to cut back services by 20 percent or 30 percent — that’s not a compelling story in this day and age,” Potter said.

Her agency is among many trying to deliver crucial services with dwindling resources.

Skagit County Community Action Agency is the largest local safety net organization, delivering a variety of services to low-income families.

Susan Lange, fund development manager for Community Action, said the economy has drastically changed how the agency works. The agency is large for area nonprofits, with about 90 full- and part-time workers and a $5.8 million budget. It has largely been dependent on grant money and state funding to operate.

“Some of the funding is just not going to be there,” Lange said. “We’ll have lots of little grants and projects come through. But private dollars that come in are able to fill gaps that other grants are not.”

With the usual sources of revenue drying up, Community Action has requested private donations and developed new fundraising events. Lange led a larger push for private donations before Christmas, and earlier this summer Community Action created Bite of Skagit to benefit the Skagit Food Share Alliance.

Lange is creating a new annual fundraising event to begin in 2011. Until then, programs are being reduced. Community Action already laid off two nurses in maternity support services.

Funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act helped, but that money will be gone by next year. Community Action used some of that money to create a resource center to assist the growing number of people who come into the agency who have no prior experience with safety nets.

Community Action had a $6.9 million budget last year with the stimulus revenue and is projecting a $5.8 million budget next year without it.

The year begins with Skagit County’s unemployment rate at 10.4 percent and safety nets overrun with new clients.

At the Anacortes 100 food bank, manager Belinda Dye said she’s been overwhelmed with people showing up at the food bank outside of its normal operating hours.

The week before Christmas, Dye met 20 people who had never been to the food bank before. Some showed up when she was handing out Christmas dinners to people who signed up for them in advance, but many just came down to the facility after hours asking for any help she could give.

“It happens sometimes, but this year it was a lot worse,” Dye said, explaining that she asked many of them to come back to her later so she could prepare them a bag of food.

The safety net agencies say they are impressed with the generosity they’ve found, but it hasn’t kept up with demand.

Kristen Damazio, spokeswoman for Food Lifeline in King County, said demand on food banks statewide has grown 13 percent. Donations have grown as well, but not as quickly.

So more agencies, like Community Action, are asking for more money to serve more people.

Potter at Boys & Girls Club said she doesn’t view other agencies as competition. They are just a fact of life.

“One more organization looking (for donations) is just a condition we all live with,” she said.

* Aaron Burkhalter can be reached at 360-416-2141 or .

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