Have you ever opened your pantry or refrigerator to make a meal and found it completely empty? Many of us would run to the store or pull out our phone and order delivery – but what if you just spent the last of your money on rent and couldn’t do that? That was Diana’s recent struggle, and why she visited Crossroads Community Services’ pantry.
She and her husband have three children (ages 6, 12, and 14) who were home from school for the summer months. The family goes through more food during this time as they replace the meals the children normally enjoyed in the school cafeteria. With her husband’s work in landscape slowing, Diana had to make tough decisions to make ends meet: deciding which bills to pay and purchasing smaller amounts of food. She eventually ran out of food and her shelves were bare –no canned goods, no fresh produce, not even rice (a normal a go-to staple in her pantry). Knowing that she had to do something to help her hungry children, Diana used part of her remaining cash to buy gas and visited Crossroads. She left that morning with almost 200 pounds of food, enough to make numerous meals and help her through this stressful time.
Crossroads helps thousands of families just like Diana’s each year. During 2017, Crossroads provided over 2.3 million pounds of food to over 11,000 individuals; helping to combat a growing and real problem – food insecurity. This occurs when an individual has inconsistent access to adequate food due to lack of financial and other resources. In Dallas County alone, approximately 18% of residents or 451,950 individuals, meet this troubling definition. Crossroads strives to efficiently meet the basic food needs of as many of those individuals as possible through its in-house food pantry and network of over 60 Community Distribution Partners.
Crossroads also plays an important role in the social services safety net. Research Partner Dr. Xia Si‘s (University of Texas-Dallas) study found that once a Women Infant and Children (WIC) recipient became ineligible for benefits due to the child’s age, recipients were 25% more likely to visit Crossroads’ network the month following. The food provided offset 50 to 94% of the lost WIC benefits.
Your support of Crossroads during North Texas Giving Day means that more families like Diana’s will be able to go home with substantial amounts of nutritious food.
By Michael Schwerin, Crossroads Community Services development director
* Graphic and photo provided by Crossroads Community Services
In nine years, Communities Foundation of Texas‘ North Texas Giving Day has pumped more than $195 million into the North Texas community. In 2017, $39 million was raised through more than 118,000 gifts benefiting over 2,000 nonprofits.
On Thursday, September 20, support Crossroads Community Services by linking here and spreading the word. #NTxGivingDay