Dramatic images released this week show thousands of cars stretching for miles, lining up for provisions at a Texas food bank as the state continues to deal with the effects of its coronavirus outbreak.
At a food drive held in Dallas County on Tuesday, cars from “the other side of the state” showed up, according to the Daily Mail. Photographs show cars bumper to bumper while 90 volunteers worked to distribute 10,000 boxes of food. People had started lining up for the food before dawn, hoping to get boxes that included dairy, canned goods, noodles, peanut butter and other basics.
Richard Archer, who showed up at the food bank this week, said: “If it wasn’t for this, we’d probably go hungry. With unemployment benefits cut, [my daughter’s] husband’s been laid off for three months. So, it’s just been a struggle. If it wasn’t for church, and food giveaways, the kids would be going hungry.”
Diana King, another person at the food drive, told CBS: “There’s times I open the refrigerator and there’s little there. We make do with what we have and we make it stretch. It helps pay a bill, so the water doesn’t get turned off. The gas doesn’t get turned off. Mortgage? We are right there on the borderline.”
The scramble for free food comes as about 30 million Americans surveyed last month said that they “didn’t have enough to eat”. This marked about 12% of all people polled. At the same time, the country is mired with record unemployment numbers. 28 million people remain unemployed nationwide as a result of the pandemic.
According to the Daily Mail, the numbers in Texas are dire: “Dallas County has recorded 55,787 cases of coronavirus and 794 deaths. In Texas there are 524,814 cases and 9,552 deaths. The positivity rate in Texas is 24.5 percent – the highest since the start of the pandemic.”
The economic situation in Texas has been deteriorating even as the number of new covid cases in the state peaked one month ago and has been declining ever since (although some blame this on declining testing)
“I actually live in West Dallas. But I came this far just to get the help,” Rene Hightower told CBS Dallas. It goes without saying that if only these people had used their government benefits payments to buy deep out of the money Tesla calls, then everyone would be rich by now.
From Dramatic Photos: Desperate For Provisions, Thousands Of Cars Line Up At Texas Food Bank By Tyler Durden