FOOD LINES USA…

Millions of Americans are continuing to line up for food relief ahead of Thanksgiving today, while coronavirus fears are stripping food banks of volunteers.

A staggering 5.6 million people struggled to put enough food on the table in the past week according to US Census survey data, while an estimated two million people are expected to go hungry in New York this holiday season.

From New York to California, people waited for hours on end to claim their parcels for the holidays and celebrities including Snoop Dogg, Tyler Perry and Tracy Morgan have lent a hand.

Long queues formed outside the Food Bank Community Kitchen in New York yesterday as families continue to struggle under the weight of doubling unemployment since the pandemic began. 

President and CEO of Food Bank for New York Leslie Gordon said around two million people in the city are expected to go hungry this Thanksgiving, up 500,000 from previous years.

Gordon told the New York Post: ‘It’s people who never thought they would find themselves standing on line for food to feed themselves and their families.

‘Some of these folks are donors to Food Bank — people who used to write checks to support our work, and now they are on line.’ 

The food bank’s chief development officer Matt Honeycutt told The Guardian: ‘We’ve been hustling to ramp supplies back up before the holidays [and] sending more trucks into neighborhoods, so people don’t have wait in cold, crowded lines.’

Comedian Tracy Morgan gave out free Thanksgiving meals to hundreds of Brooklyn NYCHA residents on Saturday. 

Morgan grew up at the Tompkins Houses complex where the meals were delivered and came with his daughter Maven, seven, and son Tracy Jr, 29.

He said: ‘I’d like to take a moment to wish everybody in the Tompkins project a beautiful, beautiful and safe, safe — please stay safe — holiday season.’ 

Meanwhile, residents in East Rutherford, New Jersey, waited for up to five hours to receive their parcels at the Meadowlands entertainment complex.  

A distraught woman told CNN: ‘If it wasn’t for this place, we wouldn’t know where we would get our food.’

Rhode Island Community Food Bank said as many as one in four households in the state was facing food insecurity, with food banks in the state seeing an increase in demand of around 26 percent. 

The program manager of CityTeam in San Jose, California, said demand for food assistance had more than tripled this year.

Hermie Smit told KTVU2: ‘We’re on track to serve about 5,000, maybe more.’ 

In Los Angeles on Monday, Snoop Dogg was handing out a turkey and all the trimmings to 2,500 Inglewood residents who had pre-registered for a drive-through event at the SoFi Stadium, home to the LA Chargers and Rams.

The day before, Tyler Perry, the billionaire actor and film studio owner, sparked chaos in Atlanta by offering 5,000 boxes of free Thanksgiving foods – corn muffin mix, tinned green beans and side dishes, plus a $25 voucher.

People queued for up to 16 hours to get hold of one of the boxes, with lines of traffic stretching back 12 miles and snarling up roads all around Perry’s Atlanta studio.  

But coronavirus fears are also stripping soup kitchens, food banks and charities across of volunteers across the country.   

A food bank in the Rocky Mountain city of Idaho Falls that fed up to 200 hungry people a day pre-pandemic was forced to close its doors this month.

‘We can’t get the volunteers because of safety concerns,’ said Ariel Jackson, head of the Community Food Basket.

There’s no shortage of needy people but, without volunteers, charities have been forced to pare back or change their distribution systems and find other ways to help.

More than 54 million Americans could go hungry during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to Feeding America, a national network of 200 food banks.

Fuelling those numbers are an estimated 3.6 million Americans who have been out of work for more than six months, according to the US Labor Department.

The number of Americans filing first-time claims for jobless benefits has been rising as the United States has been slammed by a fresh wave of coronavirus infections. More than 12 million people have been infected, the highest number globally. 

‘I’ve definitely seen new folks in the lines who do not look like they’ve been living in the streets,’ said Lillian Mark, deputy director of programming at the Glide Foundation, a charity in the California city of San Francisco.

Before the pandemic, Glide had up to 700 volunteers a week preparing and serving more than 2,000 on-site meals a day, which it has halted in favor of pre-packaged to-go meals, Mark said.

For Thanksgiving, when Glide plans to serve hot meals under tents pitched in the city’s Tenderloin District, the ranks of volunteers have definitely thinned, Mark said.

‘Folks who have volunteered here holiday after holiday for years, or folks who have volunteered with us two days a week for years, especially those who are older, are definitely sheltering in place,’ she said.

‘They definitely feel more vulnerable and so they’re opting out.’

Michael Jordan makes an ‘incredible gift’ and donates $2M from The Last Dance proceeds to Feeding America 

He’s arguably the greatest basketball player of all time.

And Michael Jordan revealed his heart of gold with an impressive $2million donation to the nonprofit Feeding America ahead of the holiday season.

The organization tweeted praise to the athletic legend for his generous contribution as he insisted it’s ‘more important than ever to pause and give thanks’ amid a challenging COVID-19 era. 

Feeding America is a hunger relief organization that supplies ‘more than 200 food banks with goods to feed more than 46 million people through food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters and other community-based agencies.’

‘In these challenging times and in a year of unimaginable difficulty due to COVID-19, it’s more important than ever to pause and give thanks,’ he said in a statement shared by the nonprofit.

‘I am proud to be donating additional proceeds from The Last Dance to Feeding America and its food banks in the Carolinas and Chicago to help feed America’s hungry.’

Feeding America shared the news on Twitter: ‘An incredible gift to be thankful for – NBA legend Michael Jordan is donating $2 million to help our neighbors facing hunger!’

Michael revealed earlier this year that he would be donating his entire $4million profit from The Last Dance to charity.

The 10-episode ESPN docuseries chronicled his rise to fame with the championship winning Chicago Bulls, and focused on the 1997-98 season with the team’s quest to win another Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy. 

A representative told People in May: ‘Michael has already committed to donating to Friends of the Children, a national non-profit that provides vulnerable children, ages 4-6, with professional mentors who stay with them from kindergarten through graduation, and we are vetting additional Coronavirus-related causes.’

The Hall of Famer and his Jordan Brand announced in June that they will donate $100 million to social organizations ‘dedicated to ensuring racial equality’ amid the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.

‘The Jordan Brand is us, the Black Community,’ the statement said. ‘Until the ingrained racism that allows our country’s institutions to fail is completely eradicated, we will remain committed to protecting and improving the lives of Black people.’

During an interview with Craig Melvin in 2019, it was revealed that Jordan had donated more than $30million to activist projects, including ‘$5 million to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, at least $3 million to hurricane relief, millions to Make-A-Wish and millions to Chicago-area-charities.’

‘My purpose for doing it is because I see a certain need,’ he told Melvin. ‘I feel a certain warmth about it. If I feel like I’m making a difference, that’s all that matters to me.’