The North Texas Food Bank will hold its Mobile Pantry food distribution on Tuesday morning at Fair Park in Dallas. It will be the fourth time at that location since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
"We've seen almost a 300% increase since non-pandemic times," NTFB Director of Government Relations Valerie Stone Hawthorne said. "This is real and this is happening, and we're seeing an economic crisis that we have not seen in so many years."
Forklifts zig zagged their way through the North Texas Food Bank warehouse in Plano on Monday, loading pallets stacked with boxes of food into trucks that will go to Fair Park early Tuesday morning, enough to feed more than 8,000 people.
"When you see the amount of people that line up to get food just to support their family, I'm just so grateful that we're able to do that," Hawthorne said. "We do fear the folks who are no longer receiving that $600 a week in unemployment insurance benefits are having a tough time filling their pantries at home."
Hawthorne said many people who wait in line at the mobile pantry giveaways are first time clients who have never had to ask for help before the pandemic.
"There's a certain humility in having to ask for help," Hawthorne said. "And we see it time and time again."
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The food distribution will start at 8:00 a.m. Tuesday at Fair Park and run until 11:00 a.m. They are asking guests not to line up before 7:00 a.m. Vehicles can enter through Gate 2. Pedestrian pickup is also available through Gate 3.
If you'd like more information about how to get food from the North Texas Food Bank, or how to make a donation of time or money, click here.
*Map locations are approximate, central locations for the city and are not meant to indicate where actual infected people live.
