ESCAMBIA COUNTY, Fla. — For the next four months, 60 veteran families won’t have to make the choice between paying a bill or buying groceries.

A new veteran food-assistance program starts Thursday. This is a partnership between “Feeding the Gulf Coast,” “Be the Miracle,” and state Representative Michelle Salzman’s office.

“These are people,” said Tim Chandler, founder and chaplain of Be the Miracle. “And our veterans, they have given so much, especially combat veterans, they have given so much. They have felt anxiety. They have felt fear, PTSD, anger, loss. They should never feel hunger. They felt hunger on the battlefield. They shouldn’t feel it back home.”

Chandler says this is why he teamed up with Feeding the Gulf Coast and Salzman.

“Even the Pentagon, a few years back acknowledged that as much as 24% of active duty military are dealing with food insecurity, let alone veterans who are coming back into civilian life,” said Feeding the Gulf Coast President and CEO Michael Ledger.

The program will provide veteran families with nutritious food from Feeding the Gulf Coast. In fact, Ledger says the boxes should be about 40% produce.

“We live in a community where we benefit from the fact that in our service every day there are 11 bases,” said Ledger. “And that’s a lot of support they provide us as a community, economic and otherwise. And so to be able to meet them where they’re at and try to meet them halfway to make sure that they’re taken care of as a veteran, as an active duty member, an active duty spouse, it means a lot to us. And I think it means a lot to this community.”

Salzman says by distributing food to the same families for months at a time, it allows them to start saving. It’s also a way to stay connected and learn the unique resources each family needs, whether it’s sports gear for kids or healthcare access.

“The problem with food distributions doing one and getting 300 veteran families to sit in line for four hours to get a week’s worth of food, that’s just one time,” Salzman said. “And if we really want to create a relationship with the community and really bring the community closer to the people that can help them, we should do something long term.”

After four months, this program will serve another round of 60 veteran families. Chandler says the need is already clear.

“When you see some some of the living conditions, there’s a female Navy veteran, her husband called me yesterday. They’re living in their SUV. They got two kids,” said Chandler. “We’re doing something that needs to be done. And we have veterans that are hurting and families that are hurting. And it can’t always be somebody else. We have to step in and we have to make a difference. And that’s where we come in to ‘Be the Miracle.'”

The food will be distributed every week for four months, completely free of charge. It starts Thursday at 5 p.m. at Jubilee Church.