Food Pantries Report Increased Reliance

Demand is up at some local food pantries, and that’s trou­ble­some news.

The Bryan Times reports that Open Hands Car­ing Hearts wor­ship cen­ter, the site of a food give­away on Tues­day night, was filled with peo­ple eager to get their hands on boxes of food such as grapes, bread, meat, and veg­eta­bles.

Orga­niz­ers there say the room that starts out full of food usu­ally gets emp­tied out rather quickly by the end of the night.

Open Hands Car­ing Hearts served almost seven thou­sand fam­i­lies and more than 18,000 indi­vid­u­als in 2013. In June of this year alone, they say they served 707 fam­i­lies and 2,060 indi­vid­u­als.

They say that is a sharp increase in the amount of peo­ple seen so far this year alone.