Las Cruces food pantry sees surge in demand, feeds close to 20 percent of county population

LAS CRUCES, New Mexico -- It's been a record year for the Casa de Peregrinos food pantry in Las Cruces. The Executive Director of the food pantry said they have distributed more than 4.7 million pounds of food to nearly 37,000 individual clients. That matches up to close to 20 percent of Dona Ana County's population.

"Poverty is always going to be here," Lorenzo Alba, Executive Director of Casa de Peregrinos said. "Hunger is always going to be here but this pandemic took it to different level."

Alba said the food pantry distributed 3.8 million pounds of food in 2019. Casa de Peregrinos was able to meet the high demand through local support in 2020. Alba said the community came together when the pandemic hit.

"Financial support from individual donors was just out of the roof this year," Alba said.

Now, the food pantry has plans to move to a new property that was purchased by the City of Las Cruces through legislative funding for both the Community of Hope and Casa de Peregrinos.

The first phase of the building is expected to be up next year. Casa De Peregrinos said it has raised close to $4 million for the facility, officials are hoping to be in the new building by September 2022.