Hundreds turn out for food distribution in Elkhart

[IndianaGreen]

Hundreds turn out for food distribution in Elkhart

Updated: March 11, 2009 01:01 AM EDT

Elkhart - Hundreds of cars lined up in economically distressed Elkhart on Tuesday to receive food and other items from 13 semitrailers sent by Feed the Children.

The trucks carried more than $2.1 million worth of food, enough to help sustain about 5,200 families for a week. Elkhart, with an unemployment rate of 18.3 percent, was the second of several cities on the nonprofit relief organization's "Americans Feeding Americans Emergency Caravan."

Patricia Smith of Elkhart waited more than an hour to get her supplies, which came in a box containing macaroni and cheese, canned goods, toilet paper and other items.

Smith has been unemployed since July, when she left her job as a waitress to care for her 11-year-old daughter, who had been diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor.

"It's been a struggle," Smith said. "We're surviving and we're going to make it through this."

http://www.wthr.com/global/story.asp?s=9984342