The COVID shut-downs have effected people who never thought they would need a food pantry. Mike, Theresa, and their two children, Thomas and Jeri, live just around the corner from St. Francis House, but they had never used our services until recently. They walked over to get food one Friday afternoon.
“I was furloughed in April and haven’t worked in over seven weeks,“ said Mike. “We’ve filed for food stamps and we’re working on everything else, but so far we haven’t received anything. Our taxes were filed, but we were told someone hacked our account and changed all the information. Because of that, we can’t get into our IRS account. We’ve contacted them, but they’re short-staffed and people are working from home so they said it would take a while. Sometimes you call and no one even picks up; it’s just a recording. We can’t get anything until the taxes get straightened out. I’ve filed for unemployment, but that hasn’t come through yet either.”
Theresa joined in. “We’re getting all our food from food banks right now. We don’t have any family here so there’s no one to help. We’ve begun selling things or taking things back to stores for refunds just to pay our bills. We’re really grateful for places like St. Francis House; I don’t know what we would do if you weren’t here.”