RICHMOND, Va. -- With each passing day as the pandemic rages on, so does the struggle for some families to keep food on the table.
Greta Randolph who runs the Saint Paul's Baptist Church outreach ministries has seen it first-hand.
Last year her church, with the help of FeedMore, gave away 260,000 pounds of free food through the Farmers to Families Food Box Program..
"People need the food. Every time we do a distribution, it continues to grow and the need is bigger. We run out of food sometimes. So, I'm happy to hear that at least through the first quarter, the program will continue," said Randolph.
The USDA recently announced the agency will purchase another 1.5 billion worth of food, adding a fifth round of free food boxes for nationwide distribution by nonprofits, food banks and faith based organizations.
Randolph recalls regular scenes of cars lining up for hours outside of her Henrico church, waiting to get the boxes.
"Very, very gracious," she said of their reactions. "A lot of people have kids at home now and they're not in school. So anything extra helps when they're trying to feed the kids all day."
She says the combination boxes are free and available to anyone who needs them.
"In that box, 30 pounds of food, gallon of milk, eggs, butter, cheese, five pound bag of apples, some kind of pre-cooked meats and now with the new round, the meat they're adding is seafood," said Randolph.
More than 3.3 billion meals have been distributed nationwide through this USDA program.
The additional funding was a part of the COVID-19 relief package that lawmakers passed last month. Food boxes should be delivered by the end of January and continue through the end of April.
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