News Release from Joy Junction
For more information call Jeremy Reynalds at 505 400 7145
or email jeremyreynalds@gmail.com
There’s enough of a hunger problem in New Mexico that the noise you hear sometimes may not be your neighbor trying to start his car. It could be his growling stomach.
According to the New Mexico Association of Food Banks (NMAFB), nearly 70,000 New Mexicans seek food assistance weekly. That’s the equivalent of a city the size of Santa Fe needing emergency assistance every week.
Joy Junction is feeling that need, where the shelter feeds more than 16,000 meals each month between its South Valley facility and Lifeline of Hope mobile feeding trucks.
The shelter is in immediate need of a variety of items including eggs, USDA approved ground beef, cheese, snacks for sack lunches, oatmeal and sugar.
Donations may be brought to 4500 2nd st SW seven days a week between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.
Joy Junction is hoping people will step up as they have done so often during the shelter’s almost 30 year existence.
Joy Junction Founder and CEO Dr. Jeremy Reynalds said, “There are many people whose stomachs would growl a whole lot more without Joy Junction and the generosity of the community, which makes what we do possible.”
The NMAFB said between 30 and 40 percent of the members of households seeking food assistance are children under the age of 18.
Twenty-one percent of the people seeking food assistance in New Mexico are senior citizens.
Sixty-one percent of households report that in the previous year they had to choose between paying utilities or buying food. Of this group, 33 percent reported that they have to make this tough choice every month.
Forty-eight percent of households report having to choose between paying their rent or mortgage or buying food. Nineteen percent of this group are forced to make this choice every month.
For more information visit www.joyjunction.org
