How did this start? In September there was a horrible storm in Bullhead that knocked out the power to our entire city for a couple of days. It was incredibly hot and a lot of people lost all of the perishable food they had in their refrigerators. A local realtor reached out to me and asked if there was something that her Realty One Group could do. We decided on a food distribution and she raised over $3000 to give our community some much needed food after the storm. With that money we were only able to give each family 2 bags of food.
I was then introduced to Sharea from Food for Families and she told me that we could be giving out two to three times that amount and for free each month! I was so excited and we have been doing these food distributions the third Saturday of the month since then.
Are you struggling to make ends meet? Choosing food at the grocery store can be challenging as often times the food that is unhealthy is so much less expensive than the food that is healthy. That is why Make Bullhead Better partnered with Food for Families (a local food bank) and asked if we could bring fresh produce, milk and meat to our community as that is where the greatest need is during this high inflation.
They said YES! Food for Families gets their food from St. Mary’s Food Bank and they bring a truck full of 20 pallets of food to Bullhead from Phoenix. Volunteers start unloading the truck at 6AM on Saturday morning.
In the month of November there was someone already waiting in line at 5:30 AM. By 8 AM the cars are winding around the corner of Alana’s Way. Everyone patiently waiting for their bags of food.
“Thank you so much. We have been having a yard sale for the last two days selling things that we needed, but we didn’t have any food and didn’t know what else to do.” November Food Recipient
Each month we don’t know what we are going to get, but we know that it will be fruit and veggies, dairy, meat of some kind and dried goods. As the pallets come off the truck the volunteers start putting everything on tables and deciding what will go with what so that the bags don’t get too heavy.
This month we are thankful that Tri-State Community Healthcare a local Federally Qualified Health Clinic (501c3 non-profit) decided to donate hundreds of reusable grocery bags so that we can load more produce into bags that people can reuse.
Perhaps you are thinking to yourself…I need some food but I am sure there are people that need it more than I do so I won’t go. Please don’t feel that way, I spoke to one of my daughter’s teachers and here is what she said;
“Last month I didn’t go because my husband and I both have full time jobs and we feel like we should be able to afford to feed our family, but we have four kids and we are barely making ends meet at the end of the month. So this month I am going to go, this would really help our family.” - Local Teacher
Even though Bullhead City was just ranked “Arizona’s Most Affordable City” that doesn’t mean that people aren’t struggling. I hope that people will look at these monthly food distributions as a way to cover their groceries for a week so that they can get caught up on some outstanding bills or buy their children the Christmas present that they just couldn’t afford because they needed that money for food.
Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year so let’s come together as a community and help one another. If you would like to volunteer by helping package up the food and distribute it we would love your help. You can just show up Saturday, Dec 17 and
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