TRI-CITIES, Wash. – Food insecurity impacts one in 11 people and one in eight kids in the combined Benton and Franklin County area according to Feeding America. It can mean the difference between going hungry or paying for other necessities like the water bill, electricity bill or rent.
Events like Second Harvest’s Mobile Food Market are an opportunity for community members to get food to feed their families.
People get in line hours in advance of the opening according to volunteers.
Patricia Powers, an elderly woman on social security, said she went to the line at 8:45 am to make sure she could get what she needed from the market that started at 10.
She said it helps check one thing off of a list of things she has to pay for on a fixed income.
“It’s just a wonderful thing to help us supplement our lives. Without the food, we probably go hungry,” she said.
Staff said the increase in food prices has had an impact on people with fixed incomes like Powers. The event normally serves around 240 families, staff said after the April 11 event they counted 340 families in need.
Volunteer Uby Creek says mobile markets help people access food near them when they can’t make it to a food bank, or the grocery store.
“It’s a powerful thing when community people come together with the schools and the churches and make things like this happen because we have a need in our community,” Creek said.
Caregiver Anna Stoker said the market became an opportunity for her to get free supplies for clients she works with who have disabilities or conditions that make it difficult to leave the house.
“They’re in great need of support, not only in terms of, you know, eating and making their budget last longer but because they can’t get out themselves,” Stoker said.
