Is Texas food demand up amid pandemic? Thousands throng outside pantry for frozen turkey before Thanksgiving
Thousands of people were seen queuing up to receive groceries at a drive-thru Texas food bank over the weekend. Some people had been in the queue for around 12 hours amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic which has inflicted economic hardships and hunger across the state. The food distribution event had been held by the North Texas Food Bank (NTFB) in Dallas on Saturday, November 14.
The food bank had seen around 600,000 pounds of food being given away which included 7,000 turkeys. It was hoped that the food given out was enough to feed around 25,000 people. During the food distribution, families had also been handed around 20 pounds of non-perishables, 15 pounds of fresh produce and bags of wheat bread, Daily Mail reports. According to pictures from the event, cars are seen backed up in four lines outside of the event on Saturday morning. NTFB spokesman Anna Kurian shared that the massive turn out for food "has certainly increased" in the state amid the raging coronavirus pandemic.
While speaking to CNN, Kurian shared, "Forty percent of the folks coming through our partners doors are doing so for the first time." Just last week, Texas had become the first US state to report 1 million confirmed cases of coronavirus. More than 119,000 of the cases have been reported in Dallas out of which 1, 379 people have died. Besides the rise in cases of coronavirus, many Texans have been filing applications for unemployment relief at a high rate. Workers in the state have filed 32,422 first-time unemployment insurance claims over the last week, as per the US Department of Labor data.
The state had seen a decrease of 5,179 unemployment claims from the previous week when around 37,601 claims had been filed. In September, Texas' unemployment rate was around 8.3% which was an increase from the 6.8% August jobless rate, a Texas Workforce Commission announced in October. Economists believe that the uptick is an example of how some industries had hoped to be able to ride out the coronavirus pandemic's economic recession and have not yet been able to do so. A Dallas resident, Samantha Woods, spoke to KTVT from her car and said, "I see blessings coming to us because we are all struggling. And I appreciate North Texas helping us out." "It really is amazing and I thank God that I was able to get in the line this morning," she shared. Another woman in another car, Cynthia Cutler, shared, "I haven't been working since December. I can't find a job, they cut off my unemployment — it's a big deal. It's a real big deal."
Another resident, Armando Castillo, spoke to Dallas News and shared that he and his step-sons had spent the night in his car outside of Fair Park to make sure they would not leave empty-handed. "We’re really appreciative of food drives because if this didn’t happen, I guess we’d be back home farming for ourselves." "They also get food from their school — that’s why we have been able to make it lately," he said speaking of his children.