By Cynthia Chevalley
Tri-Community Food Bank
Hunger is the uneasy or painful sensation caused by a recurrent or involuntary lack of food. No one should face hunger any time, but during the holidays it seems to hurt more.
For many families in Pinal County, it’s tough enough just to put food on the table for their kids. During the holiday season, there is no money for “extras” like special meals or even gifts.
Your neighbors are struggling with hunger: one in five adults and one in four children. For families living only 10 to 30 miles north of SaddleBrooke Boulevard, the statistics are more staggering. Last month, 1034 individuals requested emergency food. That’s more requests than the Tri-Community Food has ever received in a single month. 365 children and hundreds of seniors need emergency food each month. The food bank provides emergency food boxes: food enough for three meals for only three days. We don’t know what happens to these families during the other 27 days of the month. We do what we can, but children need food to grow and thrive and to do well in school. Please help them.
One thing is certain, if you choose to donate, we won’t send you a “free tote bag”. We won’t send you “free” mailing labels and notepads or calendars. We won’t sell your names to other entities. We won’t pay fancy salaries to administrators: 100 percent of the food bank is operated by volunteers. We will however buy food. We will pay area grocers and area network food banks to distribute groceries to the Tri-Community Food Bank pantry. And, we won’t ask you to drench yourselves with ice buckets, before sending your donations.
No gimmicks, no marketing schemes. We will buy food for your neighbors struggling with hunger in Oracle, San Manuel, and Mammoth in Pinal County.
Your donations will make lives better; direct assistance for needy families, including children and seniors. Hunger is real, our families are suffering. Food is a very real need like air and healthy drinking water. Good nutritious food is the treatment for hunger, not some far-off, or elusive medical breakthrough. Please help us feed your neighbors.
Tri-Community Food Bank Holiday Programs include holiday meals, with turkeys and all the trimmings at Thanksgiving and again a special meal at Christmas time for 250 families. Nearly 2,944 emergency food boxes will be distributed before January 2015: that is 28,576 meals!
Please help us with your kind donations. Give help and hope to our families. And thank you for thinking about hunger in Pinal County. Donations can also be made to the Adopt-a-Family program that gives gifts to children at Christmas.
Tri-Community Food Bank, PO Box 38, Mammoth, AZ 85618. We are located at 108 Redwood Drive in Mammoth, Ariz. We are a non-profit IRS 501(3)(c); and an Arizona Charitable Organization. Telephone: 520-487-2010; Mon-Thurs, and Sat, 9 a.m. to noon. This agency is an equal opportunity provide.