Mile-long line of cars wait to receive food parcels from parking lot between two luxury Miami hotels

A dramatic image taken in Miami Beach shows a long line of cars snaking around a parking lot surrounded by two luxury hotels as motorists wait to receive food from a food bank on Saturday.

The cars are seen forming a U-shaped line as they wait to receive food near the W Hotel and the Setai Hotel.

Both hotels are considered a favored destination for celebrities who visit Miami Beach. The W Hotel on Collins Avenue in Miami Beach charges at least $369 a night for a room. In normal times, booking a room at the Setai would set you back at least $550 a night, according to Trip Advisor.

The image is a stark reminder of the economic hardships that have befallen the state as tourism, the hospitality industry, and other key sectors of the economy have collapsed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The image taken by an aerial drone shows a long line of cars snaked around a parking lot near two luxury hotels in Miami Beach

The motorists in Miami Beach on Saturday were waiting to receive food and groceries from a local food bank

The parking lot is located between the W Hotel and the Setai Hotel, two high-end locations that are known to attract celebrities

Volunteers place crates of food inside the trunk of a car in Miami Beach on Saturday as Florida experiences record levels of unemployment due to the coronavirus pandemic

The long row of cars stretched at least a mile along a stretch of Miami Beach on Saturday

Florida’s unemployment rate shot up to 4.3 per cent in March, as coronavirus-induced closures of Florida’s theme parks, hotels and large numbers of businesses caused the highest levels of joblessness in almost two years.

It was a dramatic increase from the state’s previous month’s unemployment rate of 2.8 per cent.

Florida’s workforce shrank by 120,000 workers from February to March, labor officials said.

Economists warned that March’s preliminary numbers didn’t capture the extent of the damage caused by business closures.

An aerial drone view of cars lined up to receive food distributed by the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, with light traffic on the 405 Freeway below the overpass in Carson, California

Around 2,000 people who are facing food insecurity due to the spread of COVID-19 were expected to benefit from the distribution

Carson is a city located 13 miles south of downtown Los Angeles. The pandemic has plunged California — the world’s fifth-largest economy — into recession has hit hard

Los Angeles County on Saturday reported 81 deaths — its highest one-day total to date — and California’s death toll rose above 1,070

California lost nearly 100,000 jobs in March, state officials announced Friday, signaling a sudden end to a record 10-year streak of growth

The coronavirus outbreak has shuttered nonessential businesses and overwhelmed the state’s unemployment office

The unemployment rate in the nation’s most populous state was 5.3 per cent in March — a 1.4 percentage point increase that is the largest jump on record since 1976, when state officials began using the current formula for tracking job losses

Volunteers control traffic flow as households receive boxes of food at a drive-thru food distribution site in Carson

The food was being distributed by the Teamsters Local 572 office in Carson, California, on Saturday

‘Just because it’s still pretty recent, the data cannot capture the current economic situation. It still shows a very dark outlook,’ said Hector H. Sandoval, the director of the economic analysis program for the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Florida.

The last time Florida’s unemployment rate was that high was in May 2017, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

State economic officials said the survey was conducted in mid-March and most of the school and business closures in Florida took place in the second half of the month, so the 444,000 jobless Floridians reported in March could be much greater.

More than 800, 000 Floridians have filed applications for unemployment benefits in the past month, state officials said Thursday.

In Los Angeles County, a long line of cars was seen waiting on an overpass above the 405 Freeway in Carson as motorists braved the traffic jam to get food from a local food bank.

Volunteers load vehicles with food during a pop-up grocery store sponsored by the NBA basketball Atlanta Hawks and their G-League affiliate, the College Park Skyhawks, at the Coley Recreation Center in College Park, Georgia, on Saturday

Georgia’s death toll from COVID-19 is nearing 700 as new numbers were reported Saturday, health officials said

College Park police officers direct traffic at the Coley Recreation Center in College Park, Georgia, on Saturday

Volunteers load vehicles with food in the parking lot of the recreation center outside Atlanta on Saturday

The image above shows a volunteer filling bags with groceries at the Coley Recreation Center in College Park, Georgia, on Saturday

Two volunteers are seen above loading vehicles with bags filled with groceries in College Park, Georgia, on Saturday

At least 677 deaths statewide have been linked to the virus. Infections have been confirmed in more than 17,800 people, the Georgia Department of Public Health reported Saturday

In the San Francisco Bay Area, the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank handed out groceries and produce to motorists waiting on line in San Rafael.

In College Park, Georgia, just outside of Atlanta, motorists waited on line to receive food as well.

Georgia’s death toll from COVID-19 is nearing 700 as new numbers were reported Saturday, health officials said.

At least 677 deaths statewide have been linked to the virus. Infections have been confirmed in more than 17,800 people, the Georgia Department of Public Health reported Saturday.

In hart-hit southwest Georgia, four employees of a major poultry producer’s operations have died after becoming infected with the coronavirus, a company spokesman said on Friday.

Tyson Foods spokesman Gary Mickelson said three of the employees worked at the company’s chicken processing plant in Camilla, while the fourth person worked in a supporting job outside the plant.

He declined to say how many workers there have tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new virus.

In New York City, the Reverend Al Sharpton was seen wearing a surgical mask as he helped hand out food to needy residents in the Harlem section of Manhattan on Saturday.

Food pantries stay busy even in the best of economic times.

An aerial drone view of volunteers loading food into the back of waiting cars at the the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank in San Rafael, California, on Saturday

The Food Bank is offering drive thru pickup on Saturday mornings during the coronavirus pandemic

Food bank volunteers are seen above packing food into bags which are to be delivered to people in San Rafael on Saturday

Volunteers are seen above loading boxes filled with food into the trunks of waiting vehicles in San Rafael on Saturday

California posted job losses in six of the state’s 11 industry sectors. More than 67 per centg of the losses — or 67,200 jobs — came in the leisure and hospitality industry, which includes restaurants

The San Francisco-Marin Food Bank in California has built ‘pop-up’ pantries after some of its previous 275 or so sites had to stop operating during the pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic has prompted a spike in demand as millions of people find themselves furloughed, laid off or with businesses that have suffered huge financial blows.

‘About 50% of the people coming through our lines have never been here before,’ said Tennessee-based GraceWorks Ministries President and CEO Valencia A. Breckenridge.

Just as demand is skyrocketing, however, many of the food banks’ sources are drying up.

Restaurants, hotels and resorts – many of which are shuttered or sharply limiting their operations – are no longer supplying them with food, while other suppliers are busy restocking grocery shelves.

Farmers have switched from shipping vegetables and meats in bulk to individual packaging for grocery stores.

‘It is a perfect storm scenario,’ said Katie Fitzgerald, chief operating officer for Feeding America, a nationwide association of 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries.

People wait for a distribution of masks and food from the Reverend Al Sharpton in the Harlem neighborhood of New York on Saturday

Data indicates that African-Americans make up nearly one-third of those who have died after being infected with the coronavirus

Sharpton (left) hands food and masks to an elderly woman during a free giveaway from his headquarters in Harlem on Saturday

New York State issued a mandate ordering residents to wear facemasks in public during the coronavirus pandemic

Feeding America has seen an increase in demand from 98 per cent of its member banks, according to a recent survey.

The average increase for a member was 63 per cent, while 95 per cent of the association’s food banks reported an increase in operating expenses, the organization said.

Congress included a significant boost for emergency food assistance in its coronavirus relief legislation, but Fitzgerald warned that funding may take months to reach localities while food banks contend with a flood of need in the near term.

The $100million that billionaire Jeff Bezos pledged to the association on April 2 was already being deployed last week, she said.

‘When people say what do you need the most, we need food and money,’ said Nancy Keil, president and CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee.

In addition to finding ways to meet the spike in demand, food banks have had to devise creative new ways to distribute ever greater amounts of food while keeping both recipients and their staff safe from exposure to the coronavirus.

The San Francisco-Marin Food Bank in California has built ‘pop-up’ pantries after some of its previous 275 or so sites had to stop operating during the pandemic, spokeswoman Keely Hopkins said.

The new sites, many of which are serving hundreds of people per day, stay open for longer hours and use open spaces such as parking lots to facilitate social distancing, she added.

Paid staffers are diving in at many food banks to stock, sort and bag food for either delivery or drive-thru pickups, a measure they realized was necessary to protect volunteers, many of whom are older and particularly at risk for complications from the virus.

Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee limits volunteers to 10 per room to fill boxes.

The board of the East Nashville Cooperative Ministry has proposed closing because so many of its volunteers are elderly, including Judy Wahlstrom, who runs the program.

Wahlstrom, 70, has refused, but she said she is taking precautions, allowing only one person inside at a time to select food off the shelves while she wears a mask and gloves.

‘I said, ‘If I get it, I get it’,’ Wahlstrom said.

‘I don’t have anybody at home dependent on me. I said, ‘I got to keep it open.’ And I gave the volunteers all the options.’

At the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma, spokeswoman Cathy Nestlen said nearly 45,000 volunteers helped out last year.

This year, in order to adopt best practices for social distancing to combat the virus, staffers have stepped up to help.

Nestlen said the bank, which acts as a food distribution center for hundreds of member agencies, moved to a six-day work week this month and would consider moving to seven days a week if demand called for it.

Oklahoma had ranked among the hungriest states in the nation before the coronavirus, Nestlen noted.

‘This pandemic on top of it just shines a light on how so many households, not just in Oklahoma but around the country, live paycheck to paycheck,’ she said.

‘When a household becomes economically insecure, they almost immediately become food-insecure.’

Food banks like Nestlen’s are realizing the sharp increase in demand could continue for months, which she said makes donations even more crucial.

For now, one thing is certain: Whatever food they do acquire is flying off the shelves just as fast as it arrives.

‘The food’s coming in the back door, and it’s going right out the front to the customers,’ said Courtney Vrablik, executive director of The Store, a supermarket founded by singer Brad Paisley and his wife last month in Nashville to provide free food for those in need. 

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