Texas Border Business
EDINBURG – Four thousand bags of food have been purchased by the Hidalgo County Community Service Agency for distribution to over 3,304 identified households in Hidalgo County that includes residents 65 years or older, and/or disabled. Residents must live outside of city limits to qualify.
“Identified families are those households with an over 65 exemption or disabled exemption on their property taxes for 2020,” said Hidalgo County Community Service Agency Executive Director Jaime Longoria.” “Their home must also have a value of $50,000 or less.”
The Food Bank RGV made the bags available at $4.00 per bag. Items included in each 20-pound deliverable bag are rice, beans, peanut butter, canned vegetables, canned beans, trail mix, and some canned or bagged fruit, with an estimated 10-15 meals per bag.
Precincts have been provided a geo-coded list of names and addresses for delivery and all Precinct resources and labor will be used to deliver the bags to identified homes.
Today, Hidalgo County Precinct 2 Commissioner Eduardo “Eddie” Cantu led the piloted project and made deliveries to qualifying households.
Monday, Precinct 1 Commissioner David L. Fuentes will deliver 1,000 bags for distribution, followed by Precinct 3 Commissioner Joe M. Flores on Wednesday and Precinct 4 Commissioner Ellie Torres on Friday.
Volunteers from the Food Bank RGV will be assisting in bagging the food items that will be delivered by the county commissioners and staff.
The program is at its beginning stages and as it develops, more households will be added.
“The background of this pilot program began with seeing a map of the county and identifying rural areas that show a lack of access to grocery stores,” said Longoria. “We want to make sure the most vulnerable, elderly and/or disabled residents can get deliveries. This is the best-completed list we could find, and it allowed us to map them.”
