BELLMEAD, Texas — For years, Shepherd's Heart has hosted a mobile food pantry at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Bellmead, but after a continued increase for need in the area — they've decided to make it a permanent location.
"At the end of May, I looked at what we had done compared to last year," Executive Director Robert Gager said.
"If I take the numbers and annualize them, last year we did about 75,00 families. This year it looks like we're going to do about 87,000."
The new location is expected to make it easier for hundreds of families to access their pantries.
"We'll be able to take care Bellmead, which is a high needs area," Gager said.
"We got Lacey Lakeview, Elm Mott, and east Waco as well. We want to pull all these people into this one place."
Shepherd's Heart isn't the only food pantry in the area who's seen an increase. Waco's Salvation Army also recently told 25 News they are struggling to keep up with demand.
"For the last couple of months, the number of people we're seeing is about twice as many as we saw last year so we have to come up with that extra food we had last year," Dinah Mills with the Salvation Army said.
Mills said they've been seeing more families since the end of Covid-era SNAP benefits.
"People are losing several hundreds of dollars of food money," Mills said.
"What that means to them is, because food prices rose during that time frame, they're not able to provide food for their families anymore."
With finances remaining tight for many families, those are encouraged to seek help where possible. For the people who are capable, local food pantries ask you consider a donation to help others within the community.
"What we reflect here and what we do whether its here or any of our other distributions, is what this community is doing to help this community," Gager said.
"We're just the place it comes out."
Shepherd's Heart new pantry will begin serving on July 5. They will then be open from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesday through Friday.
