TOLEDO, Ohio — The line outside the James Caldwell Community Center stretched more than a half-mile on Thursday, as people from across Toledo showed up for drive-thru food distribution.
Members of the Ohio National Guard filled up hundreds of cars with donated food.
“A lot of vehicles, a lot of families; the demand has been increasing a lot,” Lt. Maverick Shaffer said.
Members of the National Guard have been helping foodbanks across Ohio since March. Many of those food banks would not be able to serve as many people as they have this year without their help.
Since things have not slowed down, people like Shaffer are still on orders, months after they were supposed to end.
“I’ve been doing this since June, so originally I was told I'd come on and be here for two to three weeks,” Shaffer said.
Food bank organizers said the uptick in requests is in large part due to decreasing state and federal benefits.
“We do this every week. We would be in bad shape if we didn't have the added resource of the National Guard with this many food distributions. Since the elapse of a lot of state and federal benefits, the lines continue to grow,” President/CEO, Toledo Northwestern Ohio Food Bank James M. Caldwell said.
“A lot of them, they thank us and they say, 'thank you for your service.' Then you have a few individuals who are upset when they're coming through, some of them are crying that they need to come here to get food and they're upset about that, but you know, that's why we're here,” Shaffer said.
While most Thanksgiving celebrations will look a bit smaller this year due to COVID-19, there are no restrictions on kindness or giving back.
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