A check for $900,000 was presented to the North Texas Food Bank Thursday and more than 80,000 pounds of food was raised to fight food insecurity across North Texas.
NBC 5 and Telemundo 39 joined Kroger’s annual hunger campaign, End Hunger Here, over the holidays. And this week, two trailers full of food were delivered to the North Texas Food Bank.
“We are so deeply grateful for Kroger, NBC 5, and Telemundo for enabling truckloads of product to come into our warehouse,” said Erica Yaeger, the chief external affairs officer for the North Texas Food Bank. “The need is great right now in North Texas. There are over 700,000 neighbors that are experiencing food insecurity.”
“We can't thank our customers enough for donating their generous income,” said John Votava, director of corporate affairs for Kroger. “Food insecure families may not know where their next meal is coming from, and that's part of our mission at Kroger to feed the human spirit.”
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The food delivery equates to 12 pallets of canned corn, 19 pallets of bagged rice, 12 pallets of canned green beans and eight pallets of peanut butter. Shipments to Feeding America food banks including the Tarrant Area Food Bank are scheduled for this week, and the checks will be distributed by Kroger.
“It’s not just food prices that have gone up,” said Stephen Raeside, chief external affairs officer for the Tarrant Area Food Bank. “Our fuel prices, electricity, our cost of warehousing have also increased. It costs a lot more to distribute a single pound of food.”
The food banks, which serve as warehouses, deliver pallets of food to food pantries across the area.
“Without partnerships like the North Texas Food Bank, we would not be able to keep our shelves stocked and keep up with demand,” said Ben Skye, director of communications for the nonprofit The Storehouse of Collin County. “The Storehouse of Collin County has been working closely with the North Texas Food Bank since we got established 13 years ago. And even as demand has grown, they've allowed us to grow in our impact in the community.”
The Storehouse offers two food distributions per week, and their latest numbers show they are serving more than 1,000 families per week.
“Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were serving an average of 100 families twice a week,” Skye said. “If you look at June to December, which is the last half of 2022, we were serving an average of 663 families per food pantry distribution, which translates to over 1300 families a week.”
The increase, in large part, is due to inflation.
“One of the things we observed a lot in 2022 was we started seeing a lot more of our neighbors visiting our pantry in their work attire,” Skye said. “And what that tells us is that a lot of these are working families that may not be making a living wage in our communities.”
The bag of groceries valued at $80, is worth even more to families struggling to make ends meet.
“It means tonight a parent might rest a little easier knowing they were able to feed their family,” Yaeger said. “It might mean that a senior is not having to make the hard choice between buying food and buying medicine. And it means our children are going to learn, thrive and grow because they have access to the nutritious food that they need.”
All food will be delivered to all participating food banks by Friday, Jan. 20.
Participating food banks include the North Texas Food Bank, Tarrant Area Food Bank, East Texas Food Bank, Food Bank of Northwest Louisiana and Food Bank of Central Louisiana.
