LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — Federal workers and community members continue seeking help as financial strain grows amid the ongoing government shutdown.
Emergency food distributions continue to mobilize across the Las Vegas Valley.
Including at Walk Church, working out of Schofield Middle School.
Hundreds of people lined up, each one with their own story to share.
That includes Michael Jackson.
“I was 24. I got shot. My son was only six weeks old when I got shot. I was able to raise him and my daughter and my stepdaughter,” Jackson said.
Twenty-four years later, Jackson finds himself in line, asking for help for the first time.
“It’s hard to ask. I’m grateful for it, but it’s hard for me to ask because I’m always a helper,” Jackson said.
The situation has become even harder as the shutdown impacts his son and daughter, both government employees.
“I instilled that to them growing up, get the best job you can get and they got the best job and now they aren’t getting paid. It’s kind of like, you know, it’s a smack in the face, you know,” Jackson said.
Families doing what they must
Jackson, and many others, made their way through the line of volunteers, getting food to survive the government shutdown.
Graciel Humphrey was another story FOX 5 heard while waiting in line.
She expressed frustration about being in this situation but admitted she had to swallow her pride for the sake of her family.
“It’s humbling. Of course, I have pride and ego, right? I don’t want to be standing in these lines and doing this, but I got to do what I got to do,” Humphrey said.
Humphrey is a mother with a six and nine-year-old at home, alongside so many others doing what they have to do to feed their families.
“It’s sad to see families suffering and children needing help when we have everything we need to make it so this isn’t happening but it’s still happening. It’s very sad,” Humphrey said.
Demand doubles at food distribution
These are just two of so many stories and perspectives on the struggles of the government shutdown.
Wes Hodges, one of the pastors at Walk Church, heard many of them himself as he facilitated Monday’s distribution.
“A mother and her little baby that came. They’re over on Las Vegas Boulevard so they’re a ways away,” Hodges said.
“She heard about it and took a bus with, about a 40 minute bus ride to Walmart and then had to walk almost a mile and a half here to come to come get food.”
Hodges said Walk Church normally serves about 50 families every other week. In recent weeks, that number has more than doubled.
“There’s some uncertainty to it and you can see that and people are feeling it. Just to be able to help provide a little bit for them lightens them,” Hodges said.
With still no sign the government will be opening any time soon, Jackson said people must persevere through the difficult time.
“We all just got to get up and keep pushing and keep making sense of what the nonsense is,” Jackson said.
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