A charitable food distribution in Macon drew hundreds of people Friday.
The line of cars to get into the annual event put on by one of Macon’s major hospitals, Atrium Health Navicent, was around 2 miles long, bumper-to-bumper, from the point of entry to the point of delivery of boxes of fresh produce.
By 10 a.m., Darlene Hardee had already been in the line for two hours.
“And we still got about four more lines ahead of us to get through,” she said from her place in the parking lot filled to the brim.
Hardee waited for a box of corn, potatoes, peaches and more for the same reason others did: Inflation is supercharging grocery bills.
“Yeah, with prices going up so high, everybody needs to come that can get it — that's eligible for it,” she said. “Because things are just going outrageous now.”
Just as obvious to Hardee, and to Joyce Smith at the back of the line, was the perceived silence from politicians on the issue.
“I don't hear nobody saying anything about it,” Smith said. “Not yet.”
Like others at the event, Darlene Hardee said she didn’t know what else to do about the cost of food except to continue to muddle through — and to hope.
“Maybe they’ll get somebody in there that can help the United States,” she said.
And, she finished, maybe people should vote.
