Summer is historically a time of fewer food donation drives for CCSC, but it's also when CCSC needs more food to help low-income families whose children are at home and not receiving free meals at school. This spring, CCSC asked its member churches and supporters to consider summer food drives. Thankfully, our community answered that call, because Hurricane Beryl's July landfall meant even more visitors to our food pantries.

"We helped more families in July and August than at any other time this year, 921 families in July and 918 in August," Emergency Services Program Director Karen Holloman said. "We are still, in September, hearing Beryl stories during client interviews. It takes longer for people living on the edge of poverty to recover from lost wages and the cost of lost food from power outages."

Here are two stories of Emergency Service clients CCSC helped following Hurricane Beryl.

“Gary” is a father who had accessed our Back To School and Jingle Bell Express programs, but never before sought assistance for food. He, his wife, and their school-aged children came to Emergency Services-Central for help paying rent. Hurricane Beryl had forced the family of seven from their home for six days and the unexpected food replacement costs were significant. CCSC was able to pay the remaining portion of their rent and give them groceries to get them back on track.

“Mrs. Norman” and her husband are seniors who own a home in southwest Houston. The couple lost electricity and natural gas connections during Beryl when a branch from their tree hit a power line. The Normans, who receive disability benefits, lost all their refrigerated and frozen food. They learned about CCSC through the 2-1-1 United Way HELPLine. CCSC provided them with groceries and encouragement as they cleaned up from the storm.

As we continue to help those impacted by Beryl, we send out a HUGE thank you to all our member churches, community groups and individual supporters who ran food drives this summer.

If you'd like to help stock CCSC's food pantry shelves, click HERE to view our Amazon Wish List and HERE for a list of our most needed food pantry items.