ELYRIA, Ohio — We’ve seen the long lines snake around parking lots and stretch down city blocks for miles.
"Without this food like this I would be lost,” said Shajuan Henry while waiting in line during a food distribution in Elyria.
Northeast Ohioans lining up for food distributions is reminiscent of the bread lines during the Great Depression in the late 1920’s, early 1930’s.
"I really appreciate them and this is a blessing. This is a blessing,” said Gwen Johnson during a food distribution at the May Dugan Center in Cleveland.
Cat and her fiancé Earl Sanchez are just two of the thousands of families fighting to make ends meet.
They are using the drive-thru food distribution at Parma Senior High School as a way to make that happen after both of them lost their jobs.
"I was really in the restaurant business at first so constant income, you know you get your tips everyday,” said Cat.
They haven’t had any income for an entire month but they have never missed a meal.
"By the grace of God people are donating food to these food banks to provide for us,” said Sanchez.
And all of this as new responsibilities pour in.
"Now I became a teacher, I became a nurse,” said Cat. "My daughter has asthma so I have to keep her very protected.”
Kristin Warzocha is the president and CEO of the Greater Cleveland Food Bank, they help supply the food for the Parma High food distributions and many others across Northeast Ohio including their own where they serve several thousand families each week.
"We’ve got our work cut out for us and we know that we need to be in this for the long haul,” said Warzocha.
Over the past seven weeks, the Greater Cleveland Food Bank has served 43,000 people. One third of them had never used a food bank before.
"We are buying twice, well over twice what we typically buy in shelf stable food,” said Warzocha. "This is a challenge that is going to last us well through 2020 and most likely into 2021.”
In their warehouse, they have hundreds of shelves filled with millions of pounds of food that will last them about three and a half weeks.
They need more food, which costs more money.
"We’ve been working with the USDA federally, we know that their will be significant additional food that should be coming in, should start in June,” said Warzocha. "The governor granted $5 million and those dollars will be used by all 12 food banks in our state.”
But even that won’t cut it and with donations by closed food distributors down by 50 percent, they are relying heavily on the community.
"I do believe that Northeast Ohioans are incredibly generous and while there is an enormous increase in the number of people who are going to need our help, their are also an enormous number of people who care and together we are going to get through this as a community,” said Warzocha.
That spirit of giving isn’t lost even on the most down on their luck right now. Cat and Sanchez are packing up some of their food to share.
"We’re about to go help another family,” said Sanchez. “That’s what we do every time we go to the food bank.”
--
Amanda Rivera
Follow me on Twitter: @VanallenNews
