Food pantries serve a year-round mission -- to help people who, without them, would be hungry. Yet though generosity of spirit never diminishes, donations to provide food to those who need it do run in cycles. And summer is a down cycle.

Most area pantries -- the N.C. Food Bank helps many as well -- experience a fairly serious decline in gifts due to donors being on vacation, or just because hot summer months don't generate the same kind of enthusiasm as holidays that "specialize' in giving, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

A News & Observer report reminds us that there's no time that's not a good time to dig down and give something to food pantries in communities all over North Carolina.

It's sad indeed to contemplate that parents would wait in the summer heat for the arrival of a food truck, so their children won't go to bed hungry. And it's sadder still to think that such a truck might run short.

Consider also that the need really increases during summertime, because kids who get free meals at school aren't getting them.

But pantries can't get their noble job done without help. A Wake Forest group, Operation Harvest, found its warehouse locked because it was behind on rent. The most important number in that story is 500, the number of people, per week, that the group has been feeding.

The way to help these pantries through tough summer months is -- give. Contacts are easy: The Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina can be reached at 875-0707 or via computer at www.foodbanknc.org. The Inter-Faith Food Shuttle is at 250-0043 or www.foodshuttle.org.

If you've been outside lately, you know the summer still has a long way to go. And so, then, does the need for assistance for many of our good neighbors.