Second Harvest Mega Mobile Drive (7-16-20)

Second Harvest Mega Mobile Drive (7-16-20)

Is far from over in st.

Joseph... the pandemic has forced more families to reach out for help putting food on their tables, and it's shown in the long lines outside the local second harvest food bank.

Kq2's kilee thomas has the story: <<st.

Joseph's food insecurity isn't slowing down.

Behind me is the line for second harvest's mega mobile food drive.

It's completely taken over grande avenue and as you can see behind me, it's wrapping around into douglas street.

Those patiently waiting in their cars say this is the longest line they've seen yet.

"yes, ma'am.

Yes, it is."

11 blocks of bumper to bumper traffic second harvest has seen long lines throughout the pandemic...but those waiting in their cars thursday morning say those have been nothing compared to this "no, not at all."

"we expected a long line, but not this long."

Second harvest says the long lines reflect just how many people in our area continue needing help during this time "within our region actually, we're seeing about a 54% increase in need of people coming through our mobile pantry sites."

"we're from a northern county.

We used our food pantry up by us, but we come down here to just help us survive, ma'am."

The local food bank says the high unemployment rate is playing a big role "we are still averaging a little over 7.5% unemployment rates throughout our entire region which of course is 15 counties in northwest missouri and northeast kansas."

Second harvest says they don't know what the future holds, but they anticipate the long lines to stick around.

"you know, the long lines is a question we ask every single day.

How long is this gonna last?

Predictions say it could be into 2022 before we see things go back to pre-pandemic times.

We're really at a loss as to what's gonna happen."

While the sea of cars looks daunting line is more than worth it.

"three or four more hours, but it's food to help me survive ma'am."

Reporting in st.

Joseph kilee thomas kq2 news.>> the mega mobile food drive is open to the public... the program has no income guidelines.

Here's