Charities across the United States are facing the same stress as many of US companies, banks and other businesses, who have been under financial turbulence with their stocks plummeting on Wall Street.

As their traditional business season approaches, aid organizations are hobbled by dwindling resources and soaring demands for food, clothing, money and other necessities, the Los Angeles Times reported on Thursday.

In Orange County near Los Angeles, a local Catholic charity group assembled Thanksgiving dinners for 500 families this week, filling plastic bags with frozen turkeys, cranberry sauce and other fixings.

But word of the free food attracted 920 families, many of whom left empty-handed when the aid agency doled out the goods, according to the newspaper.

"There were tears in our eyes as we had to turn people away," Terrie Montminy, the air agency's executive director, was quoted as saying. Montminy said he referred families elsewhere for food or invited them back the next day for smaller packages.

And it's not only the desperately poor who are banging on their doors. The web of poverty is expanding into the white-collar workforce, with the souring economy upending professionals who were once considered reliable contributors.

In Phoenix, Arizona, the director of a charity group said that some of his donors have become his clients.

"I receive a call or two every week from people who have been contributors for years who find themselves unemployed," said Paul Martodam, chief executive of Catholic Charities Community Services in Phoenix.

"They feel terrible. They never pictured themselves as being on the receiving side of charity," he said.

Charity administrators are forecasting a bleak holiday season and an even more troubling year ahead, given government cutbacks and contributors tightening their belts in response to the deteriorating economy.

(Xinhua News Agency November 28, 2008)