Friday, March 12, 2021
Rikki Rogers once said, “Strength doesn’t come from what you can do. It comes from overcoming the things you once thought you couldn’t.”
Last March, nobody could have predicted that your food bank would be feeding more than a quarter of a million people each month who are hungry in our five-county footprint. Nobody could have predicted that our food distribution would grow to more than 41,500,000 pounds of food in one year. We could have never predicted that our budget would balloon by more than $1 million each month so that we can feed those who are hungry. We could have never imagined that the number of people who need food would grow from 28,000 each week to over a quarter of a million people each month.
Perhaps what fuels our collective passion is knowing that our efforts have helped so many who have never had to use the food bank before, like Felipa Santiago and her three young children. Felipa lost her job in the early days of the pandemic and was out of work for nine months. She credits the food bank for providing her family with food so that they could navigate the uncertainty caused by the Coronavirus.
There are thousands of families like Felipa, who have never needed help before. To this day, it remains shocking to see the sheer number of cars that continue to line up at our drive-thru distributions. It is heartbreaking to think of how much these families are continuing to struggle to make ends meet. We continue to see tears of gratitude, smiles of relief and receive many air hugs!
Thank you for continuing to strengthen our ability to respond to this enormous need. Thank you for being our partner and our helper. From the bottom of our hearts – we thank you.
If you are well, able, and willing to volunteer, please click here to sign up.
If you are looking for food, please click here.
To support our efforts, please click here.