Extreme levels of unemployment across Arkansas left many families struggling to maintain enough food at home.
The Northwest Arkansas Food Bank teamed up with Tyson to deliver over 100,000 pounds of groceries free for the community.
The food drive took place this morning outside of Arvest Ball Park in Springdale. Workers were there setting up at 6 a.m. and cars started to arrive by 8 a.m.
Families drove in line with their trunks open as volunteers and staff from Northwest Arkansas Food Bank and Tyson handed out pounds upon pounds of groceries to each car.
Every family received 20 pounds of poultry product, 10 pounds of tortillas, milk, boxes of shelf-stable products, and produce.
The donation came from Highland Dairy, Harris Baking Company, and Tyson. Tyson says they helped with events like this across the country during the COVID-19 outbreak and planned to hand out 160,000 pounds of product to families in Northwest Arkansas.
“A great turn out today, unfortunately, that’s indicative to the level of need that we have in our community we’ve been doing these all over the country since the start of our COVID response we’re donated about 11 million pounds of product and a lot of that product will get donated in similar events like you see here today,” said Pat Bourke, Tyson Foods Corporate Social Responsibility Program Manager.
The president and CEO of the NWA Food Bank say that 65,000 people in Benton, Madison, Carroll, and Washington Counties were food insecure before COVID-19. He says this event is helpful because that number could be close to 100,000.
President and CEO of The Northwest Arkansas Food Bank say lines were so big people waited up to 2 hours to get food.