Right now there are 5 of us living in the house: myself, L who owns the house, F her partner, D F’s daughter and A D’s boyfriend. We also now have 3 cats and 2 dogs. It’s a little full.

Feeding all these people is an issue. I am the only one with a job and mine is seasonal so I’m not working right now. L is retired, F is disabled and the 2 kids don’t have jobs. Yet. They are working on it. So I figure, food pantry is the next logical step.

My favorite food pantry in the area is North Texas Food Bank. They give you, no joke, like 30 pounds of fresh produce once a month. The last time I used them, I needed to get a voucher from a local food pantry. In Garland it wasn’t a problem, but I am in Hutchins now and there is a dearth of options.

I went to the NTFB website https://www.ntfb.org/ to look up partner organizations. I figured, they would know who refers to them. I put in for any food pantry within 10 miles. And wouldn’t you know, none of them answer the phone or have voicemail. How do poor people get help? I mean, you can’t find out what’s going on here, how do people arrange for rides etc?

I called the number provided for Catholic Charities and it was a construction company. The man was nice enough, but he clearly gets a lot of these calls which are annoying to him. I called 4 area churches, no answer. Now what if it was a parishoner having a crisis? Instead of just a person looking for information. And I called NTFB directly, who referred me to Salvation Army, who also didn’t answer.

I’m assuming places are closed because it’s Friday or because it’s New Year’s week and they’re still on holiday hours. I did notice that one of the places is open tomorrow morning. I think I’ll grab D and take her with me to find out what’s going on. Otherwise I get to start the round of calls again Monday.