The North Texas Food Bank’s mobile pantry is again at Fair Park today. And it appears demand remains high. Fox 4’s Shannon Murray posted the below footage captured by the station’s helicopter. There are 4,000 boxes of food for families, and you can see just how many cars have lined up in South Dallas:
Unreal. This Sky4 video shows the line of cars headed to the mobile food pantry at Fair Park. A friend on the ground tells me it wraps around the park 1.5 times. pic.twitter.com/NPetvxStpW
— Shannon Murray (@ShannonMFox4) April 16, 2020
Last week, we ran a couple of stories about how the food banks are adapting to this need. County Judge Clay Jenkins has said 70 percent of the clients at the North Texas Food Bank in the last month are new. “The food distribution center that would have 300 families coming to it? Now it has 1,000,” Jenkins said. “That gives you an idea of the scope of the food insecurity.”
Some of the other facilities that the North Texas Food Bank helps supply, like Crossroads, have reported increases of 1,200 percent. Jenkins joined with leaders in California to negotiate with FEMA to allow emergency federal dollars to pay for food at food banks. That was previously prohibited. These photos tell the story of the need for more dollars.
“We have a bank of reserves, so we are using those resources right now,” Dr. Valerie Hawthorne, the director of government relations at the North Texas Food Bank, told us last week. “However, it’s rapidly depleting, so, that has been our plea to the community—that to continue a level of service that’s necessary now, we really need food and funds.”
