The Halloween pumpkins are still out, but the Tarrant-area food bank is thinking ahead of the holiday season.
On Friday, TAFB launched its first catalog of holiday gifts, “Hope Holidays.”
“Inflation is pretty harsh,” said Stephen Reside, TAFB’s head of development and foreign affairs. “We distribute a million meals a week.”
The TAFB Holiday of Hope gift catalog lists items such as “Fill a Fridge” and “Give Growth” to purchase seeds for community gardens. The people depicted on the Pages are not models.
“These are photos of real customers,” said Reside.
The TAFB online catalog is a stark contrast to Neiman Marcus’ more popular holiday catalog, which offers adorable gifts like the Cartier diamond tiara and the pink Maserati Barbie.
“What’s over the top right now is hunger,” said Reside.
TAFB’s customer needs are back to the level they were at the height of the pandemic. It is estimated that one in six families suffered from hunger in the past year.
“It also affected us here at the food bank,” Reside said. “There is not much surplus in the food chain at the moment, and that means we have had to buy food at unprecedented levels.”
TAFB spends $1.3 million a month that wasn’t budgeted to keep shelves full.
“It’s not sustainable for several more months,” said Reside. “So we are asking all of our supporters from Fort Worth and beyond to please progress…to ensure all of our hungry families have a great vacation.”
For a link to the Hope Holidays gift catalog, click here.