Thanksgiving is just a week away, and many North Texas families are struggling as the holidays approach.
To help out our community, our 11 Days of Giving series is expanding. Together with Tom Thumb, Albertsons, we’re supporting nonprofits through 11 days of giving in both November and December.
For this first round, they’re donating $1,000 a day to food banks across North Texas. On the third day, we visited Arlington Charities.
“We are backlogged right now by 400 families,” said Vicky Martinez, the CEO of Arlington Charities.
Things are busy at Arlington Charities. Volunteers pack the warehouse, building food packages for clients.
“Today we’ll serve about 288 families for the holiday distribution,” said Martinez.
Arlington Charities is the largest food distributor in the city. Martinez says this year the need is greater than ever.
“We have seen the need for hunger grow, just in the last two months, by three times a day,” said Martinez, “We are seeing the increase, the incline in people reaching out, brand-new clients never reached out to us before, at least one hundred new applications a day.”
Which is why Arlington Charities was selected for a $1,000 donation from Tom Thumb Albertson as a part of CBS News Texas’ 11 Days of Giving.
“Feeding America estimates that we can serve about ten meals for $1. So that’s 10,000 meals,” said Martinez.
Helping some of the people who need it the most.
“These are single moms, these are grandfathers, these are students, they’re you’re neighbors, they need help,” said Martinez.