Thankful Little Havana residents line up for holiday food distribution

By Trish Christakis

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    MIAMI (WFOR) — In Little Havana on Thursday morning, people began lining up at 3 a.m. for a holiday food distribution hosted by Commissioner Joe Carollo.

Thousands of people were lined up for blocks, as grocery prices have skyrocketed this year.

This is the second of three events where the commissioner is giving away food.

In total, they’re giving away 7,000 bags of food for Christmas dinner. Each bag weighed about 50 pounds and was filled with traditional ingredients for a holiday dinner including a 12-pound pork shoulder. Each bag has about $100 worth of food in it.

One woman told CBS4 that if it weren’t for this giveaway she wouldn’t be able to feed her family of eight Christmas dinner.

She said family members of hers lost their jobs due to the pandemic and with ever-increasing grocery prices and rent, putting food on the table for eight people has become difficult.

“Super expensive. If you don’t have foot stamps it’s limited. There’s a lot of people here, I hope a lot of people get what they need to get and nothing runs out and that every person leaves with something in their hands,” said a woman waiting in line.

“Rent is going up, gasoline is going up, and my God food is higher than ever, people need it now more than ever,” said Joe Carollo.

So how is he doing this?

Each member of the commission has a yearly budget to do things in their district. Carollo said he uses his funds for food drives like this, this year in particular, and they also received pork shoulders as donations throughout the community. So a mix of funds from the commission office and donations made this possible.

They will have another giveaway before Christmas. It happens Friday at loanDepot park from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

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