Residents flock to Farmers to Families food distribution

A line of cars backed from the Havre Community Food Bank back to near the viaduct Monday while people waited during District 4 Human Resources Development Council's second Farmers to Families Food Box program distribution.

HRDC Housing Director Alma Garcia said the boxes are filled with food that farmers around the United States were not able to sell due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of the food going to waste, it is being purchased through grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and being put into the hands of families in need.

"This is a national program. It's exciting," Garcia said. 

The boxes are awarded based on the internal need of the state and are distributed to food banks, charities, faith-based organizations and non-profits. There are no income requirements and no eligibility qualifications for this program. These boxes are distributed to everyone in the community that comes to the event. Contents include fresh produce, meat, dairy products and liquid milk.

"It is amazing to see the relief on these families faces from just knowing that they have food for their family," Garcia said.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic she has seen an increase of people needing assistance, she added.

Havre food bank distributed boxes last week as well and expected to serve even more families this week.

"Last Monday, we helped about 150 families, so this time we are expecting to reach 200 to 250 families just because people are aware of it already," Garcia said.

She said she believes the outreach will be more extensive because of word of mouth about the assistance and the easy process of delivery will also be seen as an advantage.

The housing staff of HRDC volunteered to distribute the food boxes to families Monday, Garcia said.

"Because of the restrictions, we can't have that many volunteers," she said.

The staff is taking precautions to limit exposure during distributions such as wearing masks and asking patrons to remain in their vehicles during distribution. To maintain social distancing, the driver was asked how many people are in their household and then the volunteers placed the appropriate number of boxes in the passenger seat of the families' cars as they drove through the line, which stretched around the block and up toward the viaduct. Garcia said that they do allow people to pick up boxes for people who are unable to make it due to work or quarantine as well. 

Going into this weeks' food box delivery, Garcia and her crew made a plan for the challenges they faced last week. She said that, due to traffic flow issues, they have made and posted signs to direct traffic around the block instead of straight up the viaduct. She said that will hopefully help the regular traffic flow of the area. She said that handing the boxes out will be easier because she and her volunteer team know what to expect because they have already done it once.

The USDA has authorized $500 million for more food box purchases for the Farmers to Families Food Box program from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31. They are working with current basic ordering agreement holders now and will announce contracts by the end of this month. So far the USDA has sent out 110 million boxes nationwide to American families. 

These were the only two deliveries the food bank had scheduled so far, but Garcia is hopeful that they will be able to schedule more in the near future.