By Bill Zeeble, KERA News
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-908447.mp3
Dallas, TX – The national, faith-based Feed the Children organization handed out 40 tons food to people in Dallas today. KERA's Bill Zeeble has more.
Feed The Children has distributed food to those in need for decades. But Tony Sellars, with the non-profit, says the need these days, in this downturn, is unlike anything he's ever seen.
Sellars: It wasn't the deep south it wasn't the inner city, it wasn't Appalachia it wasn't Detrtoit, it was border to border, coast to coast. A lot of people never had to ask before. For the first time in their lives they can't provide for their own family.
Sellars says Feed the Children's caravan of 18 wheeler trucks reached a 100,000 families last year, and expects to feed another 100,000 by the end of this year. Families were identified in advance & received a box of food weighing 25 pounds plus personal items, like soap and toothpaste. Cars lined up at the Cotton Bowl and along Singleton Avenue to pick up their packages. Sellars says some recipients feel ashamed, but they should not, because the recession's affecting everyone.
Sellars: A year ago you ask me "do I know somebody in this situation?" I would probably tell you no . Today you and I either know somebody directly affected and is hurting because of the economy or have a friend of a friend. So its not somebody else anymore, it's US.
Feed the Children reached 3200 Dallas families Friday. Now its caravan is off to California.