Hello, this is ███████████ with St. Mary's Food Bank. Welcome to our live donor conference call. We're just about to get started. ████████, our president and CEO, and I will be talking about the latest updates at the food bank, including the increased number of people needing our services. You'll also be able to ask questions. It's only ██ minutes long, and we're just about to get started. Stay on the line and I'm going to connect you right now. If you'd like more information, please call St. Mary's Food bank at ████████████. Please hold while we connect you to your Access Live event. This Access Live event is currently in progress. Please note that this call may be monitored, recorded, or rebroadcast. Food is the big variable, and that's why, ████, you say this. A lot of times. It's the people are economically struggling. They're not necessarily food insecure. They're struggling economically. Yeah, I think that's right. So, you know, when we talk to our neighbors all the time to try to understand, you know, what. What are their circumstances, and I think what we hear is that, you know, with inflation now, with gas prices, utility, housing costs here in the Valley, all of that has put pressure on many of our neighbors. And many of our neighbors live paycheck to paycheck. And so one crisis, whether that's a car repair or unexpected doctor's bill or a conversation I had a couple weeks ago with someone who recently lost their brother and had to pay for funeral expenses which set her back, those are the kind of unexpected events that put our neighbors under stress. And because there is not a prescription bank, there's not a gas bank, there's not a rent bank, many folks use our food bank as a way to bridge and cover some of their other expenses. Yeah, right. I just want to acknowledge ██████ wrote a very, very sweet note, and she says, how is it that you're so helpful? How are you able to be more helpful to me than politicians are? And, you know, that's the role of a nonprofit organization. You know, we step in and we're happy to do that. We want to make sure that nobody goes hungry. There's enough food in this community, and we just really have the great resources to connect the food with the people that need it. Yeah, that's right. And so, ██████, first of all, the reason we can do our work is, is people like you who support the food bank. You know, we rely heavily on donations, whether they're individuals, companies, or foundations to do our work. And so we're ████ and I and the ███ other team members here at St. Mary's are incredibly fortunate that we get to do this every day. You know the second thing I'd add is you know we're just we are our superpower is food. We like to say that there's no one better at sourcing food, rescuing food from grocery stores and farms and warehouses et cetera than we are. And then we have built this network of ███ partners. You know whether they're food pantries, whether they're senior centers for low income seniors, whether it's folks who are recovering from addiction, whether it's folks that are homeless we have all these great partners who their mission is to take care of folks going through different circum difficult circumstances and we're able to provide the food so that they can focus on the rest of their mission. And so it's great work. We have a great team, we have great volunteers that allow.