Thousands of Cars Line Up to Collect Food in Texas (+Video)
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Thousands of people lined up for groceries at a food bank distribution event in Dallas, Texas, this weekend, with organizers saying the COVID-19 pandemic has increased need in the city.
Some of the families queued for as long as 12 hours as the on-going coronavirus pandemic continues to inflict hunger and economic hardships on the state.
The food bank distribution event, held by North Texas Food Bank (NTFB) in Dallas on Saturday, saw 600,000 pounds of food given away – including 7,000 turkeys.
During the Thanksgiving-themed distribution, in addition to a frozen turkey, families were also handed 20 pounds of non-perishables, 15 pounds of fresh produce and bags of wheat bread.
Videos of the event show thousands of cars backed up in four lines outside of Fair Park on Saturday morning.
NTFB spokeswoman Anna Kurian said the turn out shows that the need for food ‘has certainly increased’ in the state amid the pandemic.
‘Forty percent of the folks coming through our partners doors are doing so for the first time,’ Kurian told CNN.
Last week, Texas became the first US state to report 1 million confirmed cases of coronavirus.
More than 119,000 of those cases have been reported in Dallas County, where 1,379 people have also died from the disease. The most afflicted county in the region is Harris, which encapsulates Houston, where 174,000 cases have been recorded and more than 2,900 people have died.
