Food bank event at Dickies Arena helps largest number of people since pandemic began
The Tarrant Area Food Bank held its largest distribution event on Wednesday at Dickies Arena where people showed up in their cars to receive food.
One of them was 27-year-old Brenda Martinez who lost her housekeeping job due to the pandemic.
“I heard about this through a text message,” Martinez said in Spanish. “But I’m here because I’ve been out of work and I have three young kids.”
Her three kids sat in the backseat of her small gray car as they gazed at men and women in uniform facilitate the event.
Members of the 136th Airlift Wing of the Texas Air National Guard were there directing traffic and loading thousands of pounds of food into people’s cars.
They’ve been assigned to assist the food bank since April and will be there until at least mid-July. Since the pandemic, the Texas National Guard has been assisting food banks and mobile COVID-19 testing sites throughout the state.
The event began at 8 a.m. and in only thirty minutes, the food bank had already served almost 400 families and individuals, said 136th Air Wing Lieutenant Colonel Tommy Smith.
“Having the opportunity to serve other Texans is the height of what we do. It’s the most fulfilling thing that we do,” Smith said. “This is the same group that was involved with evacuations in Harvey and Katrina, so domestic operations like these are unique to the National Guard.”
Julie Butner, president and CEO of Tarrant Area Food Bank, said the National Guard helped the event go by smoothly.
“The Guard has been moving people through very quickly and efficiently. They’ve been counting how many people come through and how many cars,” Butner said. “So, it’s been going great so far.”
The food bank scheduled four other mobile distribution events on that same day and Butner says that doing several distribution events is a strategy to avoid having people wait in long lines.
“We saw these massive lines in San Antonio and we’ve even heard of people lining up the night before and gosh, I don’t want that to happen here,” Butner said. “I mean, can you imagine doing that with kids in your car?”
She said that each mobile pantry event serves between 800 to 1,000 families.
With a battered economy, some people rely on food banks not only to feed themselves, but most importantly, to also feed their own kids.
“We barely have any work coming in at all, so I’m very grateful that they’re doing this so we can help our little one out for food,” said Alex Patterson, 26, who came to the event with her daughter sitting in the back seat. “As long as she’s fed, I’m happy with that.”