By Bill Forry
Managing Editor

Unless you're a real early riser, you've probably never seen them. They line up before dawn, as early as 4 a.m., and they're on their way by the time Patty's Pantry has tapped its first vat of coffee.

But they come by the scores nonetheless, most of them on foot, a platoon of neighbors who make their way to East Cottage Street each week because they have to, not 'cause they want to.

They come here before first light because Jack Gallagher's up too, manning the food pantry in the basement of the Little House. Each day, he greets anywhere from 80 to 100 people - most of them senior citizens - with a tall supermarket bag stuffed with staples and canned goods. It's hardly a gourmet smorgasbord: canned asparagus, a box of crackers, a couple of soup cans, and, if they're lucky, a slab of cheese or frozen hamburger. Enough to help folks get by for a few days, if they conserve wisely and portion small.

There's no paperwork involved. Gallagher doesn't keep a checklist of who shows up. It's first-come, first-serve.

"My thought is if you're here at four o'clock in the morning, you must need the help," says Gallagher, a Newport Street native who's worked for here for nine years now.

Each year, Jack says, the line's stretched a little bit longer. And he's not the only one that's noticed the trend. At Neponset Health Center, where Anissa Ray runs a food pantry each Tuesday, the demand continues to tax her meager resources.

"We average about 50 or 60 families each week," says Ray. "Mostly they're from Dorchester and there's some from Brockton and Quincy too.

"Our biggest clientele are large-sized families and we also have a fair amount of elders who have grandchildren."

The summertime livin' is anything but easy, hunger experts agree. With kids home from school, and not in the cafeterias, there's more burden on families to put food on the table in the mornings and at lunchtime too. Unless the youngsters are in a structured program - like the Marr Boys and Girls Club's Safe Summer Streets which provides lunch and snack each day for free - parents are left to their own devices.

Ray says that she's noticed that many of her "customers" are people who she'd served in the past, but who'd found steady work and stopped coming. At least, for a while.

"Recently, a lot of my families are single parents and I've notcied that at the beginning of the year, many were being laid-off or their hours were being cut. Now, many of them are coming back to us regularly again. More people are starting to couple up into apartments and the family sizes are growing."

Jack Forbush, Mount Washington Bank's community affairs director, says that he's heard similar reports from pantries across Dorchester and South Boston, many of whom get repeat donations throughout the year from the Southie-based community bank. Last month, Mt. Washington cut a check to Ray and the Neponset pantry to help them get through a shortfall. Stop & Shop pitched in too, through their community relations guy Tim Reidy, who came up with some gift cards. Those are "great," Ray says, because people can buy many things they normally can't get at a pantry, like meats. Adams Corner's Windy City surprised the pantry recently with another atypical donation, dropping off a couple dozen pizzas for pantry clients.

The extra hand is appreciated and, according to Ray, not always as readily extended as one might hope.

Among local grocers, Ray says that Stop & Shop is "the only one I've had any real luck with" when asking for help in lining up surplus produce or other goods. When school's in session, Ray says that the students and faculty at the Murphy School are very generous with collections.

Up at Little House, which also benefits from City Hall grants and regular help from Mt. Washington, this year brought a "very successful" and unsolicited can drive from Morrissey Boulevard's new fitness outfit, Curves.

The help, in any form, is always sorely needed, according to Ray and Gallagher, who together represent only a fraction of the hunger relief efforts in this neighborhood. According to Peter Nagle, spokesman for the Greater Boston Food Bank - which supplies most of the foodstuff in town - Dorchester is home to 95 agencies that serve the hungry. Each year, the Food Bank serves up three million pounds of food to Dorchester. That's one-seventh of their total effort, outpacing any other community in the region.

And the numbers don't change when the weather gets warmer, Nagle confirms. In fact, June's figures - the latest compiled at the Food Bank - show a 10 percent jump from last year's.

"Hunger doesn't take a summer break," says Nagle. "When people are on vacation and doing typical family things, the thoughts sometimes don't turn to hunger. But people are hungry throughout the year, not just at Thanksgiving. It's a year-round issue."

If you are able to help out with a donation, here's who to call:

Neponset Health Center food pantry: 825-0805 x106

Little House Food Pantry: 617-282-2180

Greater Boston Food Bank: 617-427-5200 and online at gbfb.org