Community Corner

Donations Needed: Valley Outreach Food Shelves are 'Extremely Bare'

Valley Outreach is in immediate need for food donations to help an "alarming" increase in the number of people needing assistance. A few of factors are high food and gas prices, an increase in family sizes and a growing number of homeless teen

The food shelves at Valley Outreach are extremely bare.

“We are in immediate need of food donations,” Valley Outreach Executive Director Christine Tubbs said Friday morning. “The increasing number of people needing our services is tremendous—we have an alarming growth (in clients) at this point.”

Valley Outreach is in need of cereal, soups (chicken, tomato and broths), canned tuna and salmon, peanut butter, jelly, bar soap and shampoo.

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Ann Leegard, who works in client services at Valley Outreach, said she has seen an increase of people who have been off of services from Valley Outreach for more than two years, who are once again returning.

“Those people found jobs, and now that’s drying up again,” Leegard said.

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The demand for food services has also grown due to the increase in family size, and a growing number of homeless teens in the area.

“We are seeing more homeless minors than every before,” Leegard said. “And that’s related to unstable family situations, not because they are bad kids, which is a huge myth.”

High gas prices and the skyrocketing cost of food is also a major factor, Tubbs said.

The issue of skyrocketing food cost is two-fold.

Not only is food more expensive for people to buy at the store, but it is also more expensive for food shelves to purchase from their discount food banks.

There is also a growing number of working people who are in need of help, Leegard said. The amount of people who are “food-insecure” is higher than the number of people in poverty, nationwide.

More and more people who use services at Valley Outreach are saying they found a job, but now they need help with fuel money to get to job training or orientation, Leegard said. They are embarrassed to ask for help, but are in the position of having to choose between paying for gas to keep their job and food to feed their family.

“People who have been working really hard to hold everything together are at the point that they need assistance just to put food on their table,” Tubbs said. “It really is alarming.”

Donations can be made on Mondays and Wednesdays between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.; Tuesdays and Thursdays by appointment and Fridays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.


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