"People are finding themselves in situations they never could've dreamed of before," says Mimi Prada with the Community Food Warehouse of Mercer County.
 
And it's no different for the volunteers trying to help those people.
 
"We are in unprecedented times," said Prada. "Every food bank is going through this across the country."
 
The Community Food Warehouse is muddling through these tough times so that others can do the same.
 
A distribution called 'truck to trunk' was held Tuesday in Hermitage. 
 
"The food is coming from the USDA," Prada said. "We're able to provide produce and dairy today, we had Schwebel's call us and say they'd like to donate bread."
 
According to the USDA, food banks across the country have seen the demand for food assistance surge by 50 percent. 
 
"Obviously we're seeing a lot more people because as they're getting their last paychecks week three and four and five have really been hard weeks," Prada says.
 
It's one of the few indicators of how the need for food assistance has changed since this pandemic began.
 
"We still don't know the magnitude of the number of people out there that need help not contacting us it's really kind of hard to know," said Prada. 
The volunteers helped nearly 500 families in two hours - only having to turn away about 50 once supplies ran out.
But Tuesday was just the start.
 
"We're looking at hopefully doing them twice a month... they need to just call us and let us know and we will get them help," said Prada.
 
If you or someone you know needs food assistance in Mercer County, contact the Community Food Warehouse at (724) 981-0353 or www.foodwarehouse.org