As COVID pandemic drags on, the need for food doesn’t go away. That demand is growing.
There were no services in session at Church of the Resurrection Saturday morning, but the parking lot was flooded with cars before dawn.
An estimated 700 families were served at a drive-through food distribution event as people struggle to pull themselves out of the financial holes left by job losses in the spring.
“I’m not a person who wants to sit home, I want to be able to work and I just can’t,” said Lisa Hoffman, a housekeeper who has been out of work since the beginning of the pandemic. “Every day the stress level is just beyond craziness. ... The car people want their money, the water people want their money, the rent guy.”
With thousands out of work, income slashed and unemployment benefits running out, the distribution has attracted triple the number of Grand Strand families than in 2019, said Larry Nowak, president of Faith Outreach Ministries, which organizes the event with the Charleston-based Lowcountry Food Bank.
It’s meant to be monthly, but in 2020, the organizations put together 31 different distribution events as the pandemic put a spotlight on the demand for such services.
It in the last several months, the event has brought in 700 to 1,000 families and several semi-trucks filled with food.
But the need isn’t necessarily new, said Stan Link, who launched the distribution events with Nowak 10 years ago.
“It’s mind-boggling, it really is,” Link said. “Before the pandemic, there was still a need, there’s always a need ... Come the fall, people were laid off, we also have a lot of the older generation, and we found that a lot of grandparents were suddenly taking care of their grandkids.”
‘Kids eat every day, not once a month’
Cars wove through the parking lot in a maze pattern and spilled out onto Hwy. 17 Bypass in Surfside Beach. By the time volunteers showed up around 4 a.m., around 20 cars already were in the parking lot.
Dennis Sessions got to the church Friday afternoon to be the first driver in line.
“Kids eat every day, not once a month,” said Sessions, a father of three. “I just have to understand how to be tight with everything. You want to conserve in every way you can because you don’t know where the next meal is coming from.”
Some people waiting in line for a box of food weren’t there for themselves. Joyce Ballard, who lives in Myrtle Beach, waits in line for hours each month to bring food for her neighbors who can’t make it themselves.
“I just wanted to help my neighbors, I don’t know what to say,” Ballard said.
Nowak says there are a dozen more like her who bring food to the homeless and elderly.
“They sit there for hours and hours, and none of it’s for them,” Nowak said. “They just take it to make sure it goes to people who can’t get out. That never happened before, that’s brand new and it’s grown. And it’s a beautiful thing.”
‘Worry, fear’ as pandemic drags on
The monthly distributions started in 2011, when around 35 families would show up each month. It grew from there, eventually drawing around 250 different families.
When the pandemic hit, organizers were forced to pivot the format of the event to adhere to social distancing guidelines and prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Instead of participants selecting their own food at an indoor facility, they wait in their cars for a selection of food packed by volunteers.
For many, the fresh food is reason for excitement, Nowak said. When families are trying to stretch their income as far as possible, the cheaper, processed food option is often the answer, he said. A program through the Lowcountry Food Bank allows them to provide more fresh food.
“Junk food is cheap, good food is expensive,” he said.
Even though the initial job losses and economic hit most nearly 10 months ago, Nowak said the need hasn’t slowed, and he doesn’t expect it to anytime soon.
“This pandemic isn’t gonna end any time soon, people are going to need food,” he said. “There’s much more worry, fear, concern in people’s eyes that wasn’t like that [before].”
To find the next food distribution event, visit Faith Outreach Ministries at faithoutreachministries-gs.org or facebook.com/faithoutreachministriesgs.
