Beautiful Virgin Islands

Saturday, Jul 26, 2025

Miles-long row of cars waits near Florida food bank as demand surges

Dramatic images from South Florida on Monday show a long line of cars backed up bumper to bumper on a roadway while motorists wait hours to get food from a food bank. A drone captured aerial shots of vehicles waiting in line outside a food bank in Sunrise, Florida.

A drone captured aerial shots of vehicles waiting in line in Sunrise, Florida, just northwest of Fort Lauderdale, on Monday.

The motorists were waiting to receive food from Feeding South Florida, a food bank that relies on donations to feed the poor.

Feeding South Florida has seen a 600 per cent increase in the number of people asking for food as millions have been laid off due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Floridians lined up to receive produce ranging from milk, chicken, apples, tomatoes, cantaloupes, and eggs.

According to the Miami Herald, food banks like Feeding South Florida and others have a glut of fresh produce to give away.

That’s because the coronavirus outbreak has forced governments to shut down the hospitality industry, which includes restaurants, hotels, airlines, cruise ships, school cafeterias, and other businesses that serve food to customers.

That means farmers who rely on these businesses to buy their crops have an excess of perishable food and nothing to do with it.

Food that isn’t donated to food banks is simply thrown away or turned into mulch as there is no set mechanism to efficiently redistribute the excess produce to those in need.

‘The volume is at a level we’ve never seen before,’ said Stephen Shelley, president and CEO of Farm Share.

‘It is overwhelming the system.’

Farm Share distributes food every day through partnerships with food pantries, churches, school, and other nonprofits.

The organization has dozens of drop sites throughout Florida. It is running at maximum capacity using every one of its 25 refrigerated trucks and six warehouses to get food to those who need it.

Feeding South Florida said it welcomes the excess donations. It is operating at a pace to deliver 2.5 million meals a week to hungry Floridians.

‘We absolutely can handle it,’ said Sari Vatske, executive vice president of Feeding South Florida.

‘We can’t get it in and out fast enough.’

Vatske said that while the number of people asking for food has increased six-fold, the number of staff has been cut by three-fourths as people are adhering to stay-at-home orders.

‘The math is not on our side,’ Vatske said.

More than 520,000 Floridians have applied for unemployment since March 15, compared to 326,000 in all of last year.

State statistics show that as of Monday, almost 13,000 people have been diagnosed with the disease and 235 have died since the outbreak began being tracked a month ago.

About 1,600 people are hospitalized in the state.

More than 6.6 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits at the end of last month - doubling a record high set just one week earlier - a sign that layoffs are accelerating in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak.

Combined with last week’s report that 3.3 million people sought unemployment aid three weeks ago, the US economy has now suffered nearly 10 million layoffs in just the past few weeks — far exceeding the figure for any corresponding period on record.

The stunning report issued last Thursday by the Labor Department showed that job cuts are mounting against the backdrop of economies in the United States and abroad that have almost certainly sunk into a severe recession as businesses have shut down across the world.

'This kind of upending of the labor market in such a short time is unheard of,' said Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank.

The sight of long rows of cars waiting outside food banks has become more frequent since the pandemic has made its impact on the United States.

On Thursday, hundreds of motorists waited hours to collect food from a food bank in Orlando, a city that has seen a surge in unemployment after the town's famous theme parks were forced to close its doors to the coronavirus outbreak.

Last Monday, motorists were forced to wait on a mile-long line for a drive-up emergency food distribution set up in Pittsburgh to meet social distancing requirements due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank in Duquesne, Pennsylvania, had only 1500 food boxes as local police set up portable toilets every 3/10ths of a mile to handle the large crowds who showed up.

The food bank, which is about 10 miles outside Pittsburgh and serves 11 counties in southwestern Pennsylvania, is considered an essential facility during containment efforts underway to slow the spread of the deadly flu-like virus, also known as COVID-19.

However, officials at the non-profit have had to cancel several food distributions and not have volunteers at its warehouse to meet mandates set up by health officials in response to the virus, WTAE reports.

The measures come as the food bank moves to protect its staff and the community from unnecessary exposure.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Deputy attorney general's second day of meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell has concluded
Controversial March in Switzerland Features Men Dressed in Nazi Uniforms
Politics is a good business: Barack Obama’s Reported Net Worth Growth, 1990–2025
Thai Civilian Death Toll Rises to 12 in Cambodian Cross-Border Attacks
TSUNAMI: Trump Just Crossed the Rubicon—And There’s No Turning Back
Over 120 Criminal Cases Dismissed in Boston Amid Public Defender Shortage
UN's Top Court Declares Environmental Protection a Legal Obligation Under International Law
"Crazy Thing": OpenAI's Sam Altman Warns Of AI Voice Fraud Crisis In Banking
The Podcaster Who Accidentally Revealed He Earns Over $10 Million a Year
Trump Announces $550 Billion Japanese Investment and New Trade Agreements with Indonesia and the Philippines
US Treasury Secretary Calls for Institutional Review of Federal Reserve Amid AI‑Driven Growth Expectations
UK Government Considers Dropping Demand for Apple Encryption Backdoor
Severe Flooding in South Korea Claims Lives Amid Ongoing Rescue Operations
Japanese Man Discovers Family Connection Through DNA Testing After Decades of Separation
Russia Signals Openness to Ukraine Peace Talks Amid Escalating Drone Warfare
Switzerland Implements Ban on Mammography Screening
Japanese Prime Minister Vows to Stay After Coalition Loses Upper House Majority
Pogacar Extends Dominance with Stage Fifteen Triumph at Tour de France
CEO Resigns Amid Controversy Over Relationship with HR Executive
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
US Revokes Visas of Brazilian Corrupted Judges Amid Fake Bolsonaro Investigation
U.S. Congress Approves Rescissions Act Cutting Federal Funding for NPR and PBS
North Korea Restricts Foreign Tourist Access to New Seaside Resort
Brazil's Supreme Court Imposes Radical Restrictions on Former President Bolsonaro
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Judge Criticizes DOJ Over Secrecy in Dropping Charges Against Gang Leader
Apple Closes $16.5 Billion Tax Dispute With Ireland
Von der Leyen Faces Setback Over €2 Trillion EU Budget Proposal
UK and Germany Collaborate on Global Military Equipment Sales
Trump Plans Over 10% Tariffs on African and Caribbean Nations
Flying Taxi CEO Reclaims Billionaire Status After Stock Surge
Epstein Files Deepen Republican Party Divide
Zuckerberg Faces $8 Billion Privacy Lawsuit From Meta Shareholders
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
SpaceX Nears $400 Billion Valuation With New Share Sale
Microsoft, US Lab to Use AI for Faster Nuclear Plant Licensing
Trump Walks Back Talk of Firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Irish Tech Worker Detained 100 days by US Authorities for Overstaying Visa
Dimon Warns on Fed Independence as Trump Administration Eyes Powell’s Succession
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Jeff Bezos Considers Purchasing Condé Nast as a Wedding Gift
Ghislaine Maxwell Says She’s Ready to Testify Before Congress on Epstein’s Criminal Empire
Bal des Pompiers: A Celebration of Community and Firefighter Culture in France
FBI Chief Kash Patel Denies Resignation Speculations Amid Epstein List Controversy
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
×