[dropcap size=big]W[/dropcap]intertime is the holiday season, where you spend time with family and friends (for those who celebrate), enjoy a Christmas dinner. We often get swept up in the stress of buying presents and planning parties ,forgetting those who are more impacted by the change in temperature, and who can’t afford the simple joys of the holiday’s.

Millions of Americans are suffering from food insecurity.

The phrase “food insecurity” refers to people who don’t know where or when their next meal is coming from. 42.2 million Americans lived in food insecure households in 2015, according to FeedingAmerica.org. Broken down, that would be approximately 29.1 million adults and 13.1 million children. In 2015, the Feeding America network was successful in distributing more than 4 billion meals to people in need.

Keep in mind, 34% of  households that are aided by Feeding America have to constantly make a choice between paying for food and paying for medicine or medical care, according to Dosomething.org. So these meals are making that choice a little less harder for those in need to have to make, especially parents who are trying to provide for their children. However, 72% of food banks don’t feel that they are able to fully meet the needs of their communities without changing the amount of food distributed among those in need.[shareprints gallery_id=”17770″ gallery_type=”squares” gallery_position=”pos_center” gallery_width=”width_100″ image_size=”medium” image_padding=”0″ theme=”dark” image_hover=”popout” lightbox_type=”slide” titles=”true” captions=”true” descriptions=”true” comments=”true” sharing=”true”]

The Feeding America network is responsible for the food banks in every county, and to find a list of locations check out the SLO county food bank website. Approximately 46,000 SLO County residents struggle with hunger. Those most affected are children and seniors, according to slofoodbank.org. At PRHS, there was an attempted food drive that did not bring in the amount of donations hoped for, but there is still hope as there is still time to drop off donations at the food bank directly.  Here in Paso Robles, there were several close locations as pictured above that collected non-perishable foods to give to the food bank. Hurry before the year comes to an end, and help a community member in need.