The bread rack at the Vashon Maury Community Food Bank was mostly empty last Wednesday, and the shelves in the storage area — at a time when they’re normally teeming — were half full.

Lines were long all morning. And that night, a client unwittingly marked a milestone at the small food bank: He took the last can of tomato sauce, emptying the food bank’s supply of government commodities until the next allocation.

In her four years at the food bank, Yvonne Pitrof, its director, has never witnessed this — the complete depletion of government commodities, a mainstay at food banks.

Since September, when the stock market crashed and major financial institutions faltered, the country has been in an economic tailspin. Islanders, it appears, are also struggling.

Observers say they see it at Vashon Thriftway, where Tim Marsh, a manager, reports fewer people are shopping. “It’s measurably different,” he said.

It’s playing out at Vashon Theatre, where owner Eileen Wolcott had to dip into her personal finances last month to keep the movie house solvent.

And at Island restaurants, where one after another is coming up with creative solutions to keep customers coming through the door.

Cory McIntyre, a contractor on the Island, put an ad in The Beachcomber two years ago for carpenters and got not a single response. Right now, he has a list of 20 asking him for work.

Brad Davis, a high-end woodworker, says for the first time in years he doesn’t know what he’ll be doing after his current project ends in December.

Jean Bosch, a real estate agent, says she’s struck by the number of e-mails she’s receiving from women offering to clean her home.

And of course, the financial strains can be seen in the real estate market, where dozens of homeowners are on the doorsteps of foreclosure. RealtyTrac.com, a Web site used by some agents to track the foreclosure market, puts the current number of Vashon homes in some stage of insolvency at 30.

Shelly Hurd, a single mother of two, is one face in this sea of financial turmoil. Her once-thriving freelance work making artful light-switch covers has dried up, she said, and her efforts to find another job have yet to pan out. She recently tried to apply for a job as a medical assistant at the Vashon Health Center, only to be told not to; the center was already flooded with applicants.

Last month, Hurd, 57, failed to pay her mortgage.

“I’m in a hole so deep, I don’t know how I’m going to get out,” she said.

She sat at a cluttered table in her modest home, where Indian-print bedspreads serve as curtains and children’s art covers the walls. Her warm face, framed by thick silver hair, looked tired. When the phone rang, she didn’t answer.

“It’s always the credit card company,” she said.

The food bank has helped enormously, she noted, but even that has brought some pain. The last time she went, she cried so hard she couldn’t bring herself to go back the following week.

“I was too embarrassed,” she said.

In unincorporated, semi-rural Vashon, where there’s little government and few sources of financial or demographic information, it’s hard to know for sure how the country’s faltering economy is affecting Islanders.

But in interview after interview — with shopkeepers, real estate agents, contractors and businesspeople — it was clear: October was a hard month on the Island.

Some believe it’s only the beginning.

“The crush is going to come this winter, when people are going to be trying to decide whether to pay their heating bill, buy food or pay rent,” said Emma Amiad, a real estate agent who heads the Island’s Interfaith Council on Homelessness. “We have a large percentage of our population who are working for very, very little. The combination of higher fuel costs and higher food costs are just pushing them over the line.”

Asked how she sees the picture on Vashon in the aftermath of September’s stock market crash, she answered: “The story is that we’re not immune to the pain.”

That story has clearly begun to unfold at the food bank, where Pitrof said the number of families visiting each week has jumped to 200, a 38 percent increase over this time last year.

“We’re seeing a lot of families, a lot of new faces that we’ve not seen before,” she said.

The rise in clientele comes at the same time that the Vashon food bank — like food banks everywhere — is struggling with changes in the food donation stream.

Historically, grocery stores would donate slightly damaged or wrongly packaged foods to places like Northwest Harvest, which in turn would disperse them to the local food banks. But that stream of damaged foods — dented cans and mislabeled packages — has all but vanished with the rise of discount grocery stores willing to buy such goods to sell at bargain prices.

As a result, Pitrof said, her food bank now finds it needs more cash, so she can buy in bulk the goods that neither Northwest Harvest nor local food drives can supply.

Add to that a decline in government commodities — food the U.S. Department of Agriculture donates as part of a complex domestic policy to support the agricultural industry — and the situation seems harder than ever, Pitrof said.

The two cases of cereal the food bank received as a government commodity disappeared within one hour on Wednesday morning, said Kelli Brown, who works at the food bank.

“In all the years I’ve worked here,” Pitrof added, “I’ve never seen government commodities run out.”

And the shelves in the storage area that are normally stuffed this time of year — a needed reserve to get through the lean months after Christmas — are not even half full, she noted.

“Normally, we’re struggling to find room in here,” Pitrof said as she scanned the ample shelf space.

But the food bank last Wednesday night still had food to offer — a case of yogurt, bread, rice, beans, tuna and more — and the mood was warm and relaxed as a line of people slowly made their way past the shelves and tables, filling paper grocery bags with their selection and bantering with the volunteers.

One young boy, wearing a football uniform, grinned as his mother picked out a special find — a leftover Halloween cake, decorated in orange and black.

Clients noted the barer-than-usual shelves, and one woman said she wishes she’d win the lottery. “I’d give a lot of money to the food bank; it’s helped me so much,” she said.

Another client, Matthew Godfrey, a Vashon native whose grandparents owned the Island’s first shoe store, also said the food bank has been a lifeline. Asked where he lives, he answered simply, “A van in the woods.”

Warm and friendly, he volunteered stories about his parents and grandparents, about how they met and the shoe store they ran. His face grew serious, however, when asked about the role of the food bank in his life.

“I live off the food bank,” he added. “If it wasn’t for the food bank, I wouldn’t make it each month.”