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GREENSBORO — To Eric Sturdivant, it’s more than just a scraggly patch of grass off Franklin Boulevard.

Sure, in the bank of trees beside his tiny church, Sturdivant has discovered empty beer bottles and used condoms. Meanwhile, he’s heard stories about delinquents coming through the pines and chunking bricks at Junior, a neighbor’s friendly dog on a chain.

But as Sturdivant walks his church’s patch of backyard grass, near a fleet of school buses, he sees it: the walk-in freezer full of meat, the shelves full of canned food, a small Dutch Barn building full of people in need.

It’s his church’s proposed food pantry. Ask him about it, and he becomes what his friends call “Brother Eric.’’

The motorcycle-riding minister with the gold front tooth sounds like the preacher he is every weekend on Channel 8, GCTV, our community access channel.

He throws the gospel hard.

“Churches do a lot of talking, but we have to do something, and I’m not talking this denomination or that denomination,’’ said Sturdivant, a 48-year-old father of three. “You want to be there like the body of Christ. We’re talking about THE Church.’’

Well, let’s talk about THE community. We’re hurting.

We all feel it in some way. We’re all paying more for gas and more for groceries. So, in some fashion, we’re all strapped for cash.

But call the Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest N.C., our region’s United Way of Food.

The nonprofit helps feed 18 counties, including Guilford, where it supplies such staples as rice and pinto beans to 162 programs, including 45 food pantries.

Second Harvest is receiving more requests — but collecting fewer pounds of food.

Talk to a minister involved with Guilford CAN, or the Congregational Assistance Network. The church-driven program is coordinating the efforts of about a dozen local congregations because they’re getting more requests from needy people.

Then hit the Greensboro Urban Ministry, the city’s headquarters for help. The nonprofit is doling out more emergency food as well as feeding, housing and seeing more people in need.

The big change this year? More middle-class folks are coming in. They need food, too.

For a family of four, here’s some of what they get: two cans of pinto beans, two cans of green beans, two cans of corn, two cans of tuna, one pound of rice, one box of dry milk and one box of macaroni and cheese.

And that’s just for a few days.

Mike Aiken, the nonprofit’s executive director, has a name for what he sees. “We’re not in a recession,’’ he says. “We’re in a depression.’’

Each person walking into Greensboro Urban Ministry for food has a story.

Like Jillyn Smith, a 38-year-old single mother to three daughters. She came in Monday because her check for her sales job, where she makes $10.25 an hour, doesn’t stretch far enough.

Or the 40-year-old single mother of three, grandmother of two. She doesn’t have a job. She says she can’t hold down a job because of her bipolar disorder.

She came in Monday because she doesn’t want to steal to feed herself or her two daughters, ages 11 and 8.

“I hope it gets better, honey,” she said, “because I don’t want do to the bad things I used to do.”

That brings us back to Sturdivant.

His church, Final Call Ministry, has bought a van for food deliveries. Meanwhile, he’s sent in his application to Second Harvest, and he’s found two other congregations interested in opening satellite food pantries.

Still, he has a way to go. His church needs to raise $12,514 for the food shelter and its equipment, and then it needs to have $400 a month to operate the food pantry.

But he’s optimistic. So for the past few months, after his weekly services, Sturdivant has told his parishioners the same thing about the food pantry he calls, appropriately enough, the Two Fish Five Loaves Food Bank.

“The food bank is coming along,” he’ll say. “The Lord is going to do it.’’

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com