POTTSVILLE, Pa. — Nearly 200 cars left the Fairlane Mall in Pottsville Friday packed with fresh produce and other groceries thanks to Helping Harvest.
They're a food bank that hosts traditional food assistance programs but it is coming to communities across Schuylkill County through their mobile markets.
"We're trying to find new and creative ways to get food to the people who need it. So one of the things we did is develop these drive-thru pantries where people come through with their cars. We're able to give people a larger amount of food in their cars than if they came with those tiny shopping carts to the food pantry," said Jay Worrall, Helping Harvest President.
Jay Worrall shares how his family occasionally got food from their church's food pantry and believes the mobile markets help eliminate the stigma of going to a food bank.
"Fortunately, over the past few years, we've seen the stigma of food insecurity decrease in the community. So some of that stigma has been removed which is a good thing. But if we're going to see more people come to Helping Harvest for food, we need to make sure we have the food for them," said Worrall.
The mobile markets have allowed helping harvest to distribute a hundred million pounds of food throughout Schuylkill County in the month of June. And they anticipate that number only getting bigger with the current inflation trends.
"I'm hearing a lot of people today they couldn't do certain things because they wanted to go get their food. Food is more important than anything. So they had to save their gas to get here," said Rick Watcher, Helping Harvest Volunteer.
To accommodate more families in need, Helping Harvest is now hosting 25 mobile markets a month for qualifying families county-wide.
"A lot of people think they can only come to this market and that's it. That's not true, you can go to other markets as long as you fill out the paperwork, you can go to any market at any time," said Watcher.
Their next mobile market is happening next Monday morning in Gerardville.
To learn more about Helping Harvest head to their website by clicking here.
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