The high cost of food is hurting a lot of Arizonans. Even though food prices haven’t risen that much in the past 12 months, groceries still cost more than they did three years ago, leaving many still struggling to get enough food.
If you’re traveling eastbound on Thomas Road, near 31st Avenue, expect a line of traffic. That’s because people are turning into St. Mary’s Food Bank to pick up about a week’s worth of groceries.
"We're going to see 1,000 families today come through this one location," said Jerry Brown, director of public relations at St. Mary's Food Bank.
He says the number of people coming through just keeps growing. "Because of inflation and the rising costs of food, medicine, rent, gas, anything you can talk about, it's just gone to numbers that we have never seen before," he said.
Brown said the same thing back in 2022 when KJZZ visited the food bank.
"And those were record numbers at those point. We would love to see those numbers now because we're another 20% over those record numbers," Brown said.
