“Right now, a gallon of milk costs more than a gallon of gas,” he said. “And even at discount stores, there is no more 25-cent bread.”

Weiesnbach, who has operated the Ark of Faith since 1981, said she is getting more clients she calls “the working poor.”

“Now we have utilities increasing and gas increasing,” she said. “I couldn’t believe how the price of fruit went up in the past two weeks.”

Brown, who lives on Social Security disability income, also gets food from the Muskogee Food Pantry, First Baptist Church and the Ark of Faith when the food stamps run out. She said she buys store brands, not the more expensive brands when she can.

She said she does what she can to cut other costs, but it’s not easy.

Noon on a summer day and the only light in Brown’s apartment is that which streams through windows or flickers from a portable television.

“I keep the lights off to save electricity,” she said, adding that she also keeps the air conditioning turned off.

She said she doesn’t use her dishwasher because it leaks.

“It’s easier doing it by hand,” she said.

The Browns have no phone.

As her fifth-grader son returns to Grant Foreman Elementary School this fall, he will carry many of the same folders and other school supplies he had last year, she said.

Brown said she goes to a nearby Laundromat to wash clothes and spends about $20 in change to do five loads.

She said she spends about $40 a week to put gas in her car.

“I go out every three days to look for work,” she said. “The challenge is that they need skills that I don’t have. I can do factory work, I can take care of kids. I can do a little bit of nurses’ aide work in a nursing facility.”

She is registered for the Workforce program and Oklahoma rehab, she said.