Durham church sees increase in families needing help

For the past four years, dozens of cars have lined up every Wednesday morning to pick up bags of food at Bell Yeager Freewill Baptist Church in Durham.

However, event organizers said their service is needed now more than ever.

When Bell Yeager Church first started distributing food they were feeding about 70 to 80 families a week.

Recently, that number has gone up.

“In the last year or so, we’ve inched up to about 100 families per week. Now, we’re averaging about 200 families per week,” said Bernadette Lipscomb, the education director for Bell Yeager.

Lipscomb believed the uptick in families is because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“We’ve talked to people who come through and that’s what they’re saying. They just need a little extra,” she said.

Some, like Kevin Holt, use the food pantry for those struggling with mental health and drug addiction.

Holt comes every week to pick up food to bring to his clients.

“A lot of my clients, they can’t get out or they don’t have transportation,” said Holt. “But with the heat, the way it is, it’s just so hard on them. So, by me getting food it helps them out instead of them going to the dollar store and buying junk.”

Normally, people would pick up their own food, but since the world is still in the middle of a pandemic, the church’s program has had to move to a drive-through service.

Lipscomb said this has been challenging.

“Now that’s been difficult because some of our clients are not understanding why. So it takes us some time to explain. We need you to stay in your cars, and we’ll make sure you have everything you need and that has done well,” Lipscomb, said.

Bell Yeager Church also provides online tutoring services and summer camps for kids in the neighborhood.