CONCORD, N.C. -- Sharon Sweatt can use all the help she can get in the kitchen. She's raising four grandchildren, all of whom eat a lot.

“If I could afford it, I could easily spend $250 to $300 a week at the grocery store,” she said.

But Sweatt can't afford it, and neither can the growing number of families turning to food pantries.

At Cooperative Christian Ministry in Concord, director Ed Hosack said demand is up 14 percent -- much of it from families who never needed help before.

“One family after another. One comes and then shares the same story, ‘We were doing just fine -- until.’ And the crisis strikes and the families are struggling, and we're seeing it in all of our pantries,” Hosack said.

Cooperative Christian Ministry is just one of the more then 600 agencies that get food from Second Harvest Food Bank in Charlotte, where demand has soared. Experts say it's because of the economy.

Food banks help people take limited dollars and use them elsewhere.

“To be able to come in and get $85 or $100 worth of groceries to carry them through a week allows the family budget to move and take care of those necessities,” Hosack said.

That's certainly the case for Sweatt. She's able to stretch her budget with the food she gets from Cooperative Christian Ministry. She said without that help, she'd have to make some tough choices.

“I would have to either let some of my medication go -- I'm on blood pressure medicine -- I would have to just let it go and not take it, because I'm not going to see the family go hungry,” she said.

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