DALLAS (1080 KRLD) - As the year comes to an end, so do several government programs supporting the North Texas Food Bank.
Among the programs ending are the Food Purchase and Distribution Program and the Farmers to Families Food Box Program.
"And those programs together are around 20 million pounds of food," says Dr. Valerie Hawthorne, NTFB's Director of Government Relations. "So we've been trying to find creative ways to make up that gap. Unfortunately, filling a gap like that … needs to come from other types of government resources."
Dr. Hawthorne says some help could come from the new coronavirus relief bill, but even that isn't enough. The NTFB has been seeing twice as much need since the start of the pandemic and Hawthorne says it's been challenging to meet it. The loss of government support doesn't help.
"We've been planning all year for the end of these programs," Hawthorne says. "But we've really been holding out hope that they would get reauthorized … because the need isn't going anywhere."
