CENTRAL TEXAS — Food pantries across Central Texas are still seeing an increase in need for their services.
"We've had a hard time — we've had to limit the variety of foods we're giving out which makes us sad," Alicia Jallah, Executive Director for Helping Hands Ministries, told 25 News.
Helping Hands Ministries is currently serving about 550 families each week in Belton — that's up from roughly 400 per week this same time last year.
"We've had a drastic increase in families utilize our food pantry every single week. Lots of new families too." Jallah said.
"In the last three months, we've had over 150 new families needing assistance and needing to come get groceries from us."
Down the road in Waco, Caritas is also seeing a large increase in need.
"There are days where we've seen really close to 200," said director, Ann Owen.
"It seems like there's more folks coming through, more new folks coming through for assistance."
The need has been increasing over the last few years, but with the cost of living now so high, these nonprofits say people are really having a hard time making ends meet.
"It's been such a long, hot summer, water bills are higher, electricity bills are higher, so they need to allocate more funds to those bills," Jallah said.
"We've received a lot of calls for assistance with utilities and we can help them as long as funds are available, but we do have a waiting list right now," Owen said.
As the need for non-profits services increases, so does their need for community donations. Every dollar or food can donated helps them help others through a difficult time.
