MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WBTW) – Volunteers at New Beginnings food distribution at the Church of Resurrection in Myrtle Beach have seen an increased demand for food since the coronavirus outbreak began.
“When we do our normal Saturday of the month, third Saturday of the month distribution, we’ll average about 200 families. We’ll probably do three times that today,” Larry Nowak, Vice President of Faith Outreach Ministries said.
Volunteers fed around 700 families at their mass food distribution Saturday. A line of cars wrapped around the church. Nowak says it shows how much the area’s food insecurity has increased.
“Even though everyone has their stimulus checks, not everybody can use that just for food. They need it for other things,” Nowak said.
Volunteers worked in an assembly line to bring boxes of groceries to people’s cars. Some unpacked the food, others lined up with grocery carts to fill up and the rest loaded up the cars.
The groceries came from the Lowcountry Food Bank.
“Overall our food supply is not where it was a month ago,” Jeff Rubbelke, Chief Operations Officer for the Lowcountry Food Bank said.
The Lowcountry Food Bank typically has about a month’s supply of food on hand, but with more families needing food, that stock has dropped to about a 10 day supply.
However, thanks to daily shipments of groceries and willing volunteers, the food bank has been able to keep up with the increased demand.
“You see all the people here today, you see all the people at the local food pantries, I think that’s a testament to when we’re in need, people step up,” Rubbelke said.
“There are people who are very low on food at their house. Now they’ve got food to make it for a while again,” Nowak said.
For information about future food distributions and how to volunteer, visit the Lowcountry Food Bank website here.