Hundreds of meals are given out everyday in a time span of three hours , a clear sign into the food insecurity struggles kern county is facing. However local volunteers are lending a helping hand through an extra meal.
"This is very convenient for me and the kids they can eat that lunch and I can save the lunch for dinner,” said Bakersfield resident Debbe Johnson.
Johnson is a mother of five, and says it can get stressful at times when she's constantly thinking about the next meal, especially during the summer time.
This stress of food insecurity radiates throughout the county.
According to an assessment on food insecurity released by CAP-K, in 2021, 10.5% of adults in California were food insecure. Nationwide, it was 10.2%. But Kern County's rate was higher at 13%, and children in Kern County had it worse, at 18.2%.
"We've been doing consistently 1,300 meals a day, so 1,300 on Monday, 1,300 on Tuesday, so that's 2,600 meals and today were on track to do another 1,300, we'll do the same tomorrow,” said Eric Arias, President and CEO of United Way.
Arias says with such a large amount of people showing up to the sites, its a clear example of how food insecure the county is, especially because he says, they can't feed everyone.
"Even though we’re able to do 1,300 meals a day, more than 5,000 throughout this week, we are still unfortunately unable to continue to provide to all of the cars that show up today,” said Arias.
The initiative "Feeding Families First" started on the 28. Created for families with kids, arias says the idea was to host the drive during the last week of summer to help parents prepare for school.
Something that resident Jim Wagoner says is truly a blessing.
"Since they're not in school it makes it a lot easier to be able to come by and get food so that they can eat and the family itself can enjoy meal together. It's really a cool thing,” said Wagoner.
August 1 will be the last distribution date available to the public, however this is only their summer initiative. Click here to learn more.
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