DAYTON — As many continue to recover from the pandemic, a common dilemma Ohioans are continuing to dealing with is hunger.
With God’s Grace Mobile Food Pantry volunteers said they’re still feeding dozens of families every day. It’s been two months since the store opened.
“So many families are relying on this grocery store that we have here in Northridge and we are seeing families from Northridge, but we are also seeing families from Preble County and Greene County as well.” said Nicole Adkins, executive director of With God’s Grace Food Pantry.
Adkins told NewsCenter7′s Ronnell Hunt the numbers of people they were helping decreased for a while, but now she says with more recent job and income losses they’re back to helping the same numbers, like when the pandemic started.
On Wednesday they helped 1414 people at their mobile food pantry. Including 428 children, 790 adults and 196 seniors.
At the grocery store, Adkins said those numbers break down to more than 60 families every day.
“What it is - is a lot of families that were getting unemployment, they have ran out of their unemployment and a lot of them were not able to get the extended unemployment. We found people that applied for unemployment, but was never able to get it this whole time.” said Adkins. “We seen families just lose jobs because businesses are closing still. We have families that have been through fires, that have lost everything that they had.”
>> UD to host A-10 championship game
Shopper, Dee Lumpkin, said the lack of unemployment funds is what brought her to With God’s Grace.
“They have given us what was needed in this area to be able to take advantage of and just being able to provide food.” said Lumpkin. “Being a diabetic, it has tremendously helped me in maintain my diabetes.”
With people like Lumpkin in mind, With God’s Grace volunteers arrive early in the morning to prepare for the day.
Store employees take shoppers by appointment only to directly meet the needs of each customer that walks in.
“The grocery store has been helping many families become self-sufficient. We had so many families already that were using us for a short period of time and no longer need us. So, we are seeing the program actually making a difference,” said Nicole Adkins.
They also provide cooking classes and other programs to help get families back on their feet and teach them how to be self-sufficient.
We want to be able help our families to deal with their struggles to make the impact and the difference that they need.” said Adkins.
To set up an appointment for the free grocery and find out more about program, you can visit www.withgodsgracepantry.org
Cox Media Group
