Crowds are expected at the University of Dayton Arena Friday for a giant food pantry giveaway. The annual event aims to help needy residents by providing them with fresh produce free of charge.
Miami Valley Foodbank organizers say they are preparing for as many as 1,500 families to line up this year to take home free boxes of fresh, locally grown vegetables and fruits.
The Foodbank’s Lora Davenport says produce is often too expensive for financially struggling families to afford.
Despite gains in job growth nearly 10 years after the Great Recession, many people in the Miami Valley are still having trouble making ends meet. And Davenport says hunger is a persistent problem.
“In Montgomery County alone, there are 95,820 people who don’t know where their next meal is coming from, which is about 18 percent of the population,” she says.
Foodbank officials say many Montgomery County food pantry customers are senior citizens, or they’re employed but don’t earn enough to afford regular, healthy meals.
“They may be working two or three jobs just to keep the lights on, to be able to pay for their car, to get to work, and being able to have access to emergency food makes it so that they have one less thing that they have to worry about to make sure that their family is fed and taken care of,” Davenport says.
CareSource is sponsoring the mass food distribution. The event is open to residents of Montgomery, Greene and Preble Counties.
It runs from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. in the parking lot of UD Arena.
For more information go to https://thefoodbankdayton.org/.
