Tom McAvoy of Mission Carthage watches as T.J. Angus of the Longview Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints loads McAvoy’s truck with a pallet of food the church donated to the mission on Thursday, April 23, 2020, at M5 Inc. in Kilgore. (Michael Cavazos/News-Journal Photo)

Local social service organizations expect a wave of need to follow an economy weakened by the new coronavirus pandemic.

“Every day when we get calls, it’s, ‘I’ve never been in this situation before. I can’t believe I’m having to ask for help,’” said Robin Fruia, executive director at Longview Community Ministries. In addition to a food box program, the organization provides rental, utility and prescription assistance.

She said the organization is seeing more people asking for those types of assistance.

“That’s hard for people who have worked their whole lives and never been in this situation. Those are the phone calls that we’re getting,” she said. “We’re seeing people in dire financial situations need help paying just their regular bills.”

The food box program, which provides supplemental food boxes to families once a month, hasn’t yet seen a big increase in demand, but she said she expects that’s coming. The organization hasn’t curtailed operations during the COVID-19 scare, but now operates its food box program as a drive-thru.

“Right now is just an uncertain time, because we have the shelter-in-place currently going on. A lot of people are staying home and not getting out a whole lot, of course. Our population of clients, many of them are elderly, many of them have compromised immune systems due to various medical conditions, various disabilities,” Fruia said. “We’re not seeing a lot of them right now. However, we are gearing up because we feel like we will be overwhelmed with needs that are coming soon. Once people can leave their homes and all, we’ll see a whole lot more demand.”

Area residents are anticipating the increased demand, though, and offering to help.

“The Longview community is very generous,” she said, adding that she’s received many calls since the COVID-19 situation developed with people donating their time, money and food to the organization.

In March, Longview Community Ministries celebrated on Facebook what Fruia described as a “huge” donation from Sysco East Texas of more than 15 pallets of food — fresh produce and dairy products that would have gone to restaurants, which were banned from offering dine-in service as part of the statewide effort to fight COVID-19. It was so much that it was more than the organization could store, so it shared with other local nonprofits and shelters.

On Thursday, the Longview Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints donated a total of 5,000 pounds of food for Longview Community Ministries, Longview Dream Center and Mission Carthage.

“Our church really tries to be good members of our community and support our community in any way that we can,” said Chad Newman, president of the Longview Stake, which includes churches in Longview, Marshall, Henderson and all the way to Nacogdoches and Lufkin.

“When the pandemic really got underway, and we saw where things were headed with unemployment and the stay-at-home order, the concern was, ‘How can we be good friends and neighbors in the community?’” he said.

The answer was for the bishops — or leaders — of local congregations to reach out to local food pantries to find out what their needs were. Then, the local stake applied for a commodities grant from what’s called the bishop’s storehouse. It’s a place where church members who are in need may go for groceries.

But for “exceptional circumstances” such as now, the churches may request larger quantities of food. Church members picked up the donation — mostly frozen meats and canned goods — in Carrollton on Thursday.

“Service is really ingrained in our discipleship, so we want to search out and find opportunities to help lift and uplift in our neighborhoods and communities,” Newman said.

Mission Marshall previously told the Panola Watchman, a sister paper to the News-Journal, that it is helping record numbers of people this month while missing out on its signature fundraiser normally held in April.

The Longview Dream Center, which also provides food and other services to people in need, also has seen a “big increase” in the number of people seeking food assistance, Terry Proctor said.

Proctor is normally the organization’s resale store manager, but it’s closed, so she helps distribute food through what is also now a drive-thru service. She estimated the 200 to 300 cars participating in each food distribution is about double what the organization normally serves.

“We’re seeing a lot of new clients that we’ve never seen before,” she said.

“They’re losing their jobs. They don’t have money to buy food because of no jobs,” Proctor said. “Their kids are home from school, and they’re having to feed them, and they’re not used to doing that this time of year.”

Donations help provide food and other services at Longview Dream Center, while its resale shop typically pays for the few employees who work there, Proctor said. With the store closed, the organization is faced with possibly not being able to pay employees. Electricity, water and rent also must be paid.

“We have what we need. God’s just providing what we need for the people,” Proctor said. “We’re just praying that we can keep our doors open so we can do that. … We need financial donations to help us do that.”

• Longview Community Ministries, at 506 N. Second St., provides monthly food boxes from 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. For information, call (903) 753-3561.
• Longview Dream Center, 803 Gilmer Road, opens its LifeSource Food Pantry at 3 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays; provides fresh produce from 10 a.m. -noon on Saturdays; and operates a senior box program on the first and third Wednesday of the month. For information, call (903) 653-1740.