State’s low ranking in food security fuels urgency
By MICHAEL RODRIGUEZ
Managing Editor
editor@sbnewspaper.com
Mayor Joe H. Hernandez has a accepted a challenge made by the San Benito Food Pantry to help run the pantry on a Wednesday, when volunteers bag and distribute free food to qualifying families and individuals. (Stock photo)
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) released a report Tuesday ranking Texas second worst in the country in food security, this as San Benito Food Pantry records revealed a 269 percent increase in families seeking free meals.
According to the USDA report, nearly 19 percent of Texas households do not have “consistent, dependable access to enough food for active, healthy living.”
It’s information that may be surprising to some, but not to San Benito Food Pantry President Lidia Garcia and Manager Claire Roewe, who in an exclusive San Benito News report – published in the Sept. 14 edition – revealed a sharp increase in families serviced by the pantry in just a three-year span. Said increase was calculated according to the pantry’s intake from August 2008 to 2011. During that time, families serviced by the pantry skyrocketed from 558 then to 1,501 now. Individual numbers followed suit, rising from 1,201 adults and 926 children to 3,239 and 2,488, respectively.
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