FARGO, N.D. (Valley News Live) Imagine working a job or even two and still not being able to afford food. It's happening to more and more people in our community and the local emergency food shelter for Cass and Clay counties is getting hit hard. Valley News Live spoke with them about the type of people they are seeing and how you can help them.
"During the winter months it's unexpected bills, pipes break, it's needing more gas because the car needs to run longer, so on and so forth," explained Requel Johnson.
Johnson says things have been tight for her family of four, so she needs some extra help.
"It's really helpful, especially if you need to get food until your next paycheck," said Johnson.
"We're finding ourselves in a crunch," said Emergency Food Pantry Executive Director, Stacie Loegering. "One of the things we are really proud of is having a variety of food item options for people who come through and every week were running out of something."
The emergency food pantry typically sees about 43 households per day. Just before Thanksgiving they served 114 households.
"The next day we were in the nineties," explained Loegering. "What we saw in 3 days of the number of people that we helped would have probably been over a week of that and we're continuing to see those high numbers now into December."
This year the food pantry has helped more than they have in years past, and most of the people they are helping are between the ages of 20 and 50 that have one or more jobs.
"Things we hear sometimes is that it's a car payment, a battery that went dead in the car or a medical bill that came up, somebody lost jobs or in a job that doesn't have consistent hours just has less hours," explained Loegering.
Loegering says they appreciate the food donations, but right now monetary donations will help them get specific items they are running out of.
"When we are giving a dollar, we are able to provide 4 meals with that," said Loegering.
Just recently the pantry ran out of eggs and peanut butter. Leaving them to purchase the items.
"This place can be really full and they're from all walks of life and they're good people," said Johnson. "I think when you need it, you need it."
If you are able to donate money to the food pantry, you can do so online, by mail or in person. If you would like to donate food, you can drop it off there or at local grocery stores.
