TARRANT COUNTY (1080 KRLD)- The Tarrant Area Food Bank held its first "mega mobile market" of 2021 Friday outside Herman Clark Stadium in Fort Worth. The food bank held the events weekly in 2020 but stopped them for three weeks over Christmas and New Year's; the food bank continued with smaller pantries.
"It's disappointing. It's really disappointing to be back out here, and that we're still seeing this incredible need," says Tarrant Area Food Bank Chief Executive Julie Butner.
Each car received about 80 pounds of non-perishable food, fruits, vegetables, meat and milk. Some started lining up at 4 a.m. Friday.
"These help me. They give us things like milk and eggs and meat, fresh vegetables, things I can't afford," the woman at the front of the line said. "I have to do what I have to do."
The man behind her says he pulled in just after her. He says he was glad for the latest round of COVID relief, but that was a short-term solution.
"That $600 is gone already," he says. "I'll put it this way: I got a $400 electric bill this month."
With winter weather expected Sunday, the woman at the front of the line says she was also worried about a large bill for electricity and natural gas.
"With it fixing to get really cold Sunday with that snow and ice, I told my brother, 'I'm coming out here to get what we can get,'" she says.
The Texas National Guard has resumed working at the mobile pantries, but Butner says they are only activated for 30 days at a time. She says the food bank will need to apply to have the deployment extended into February.
"The community has been very, very supportive," she says. "Of course, we can't do this work without their financial support."
Information about how to volunteer or donate is available HERE.
Butner says the vaccine may help the economy recover later this year, but mobile pantries will continue as long as the need remains.
"Hospitalizations are at a record high, the unemployment rate is going up. Many restaurants, hospitality companies that thought, 'Maybe I can get through the holiday season, and that would be enough to bolster me,' are now having to make the tough decisions to lay employees off or close down their business," she says.
