As a mother of two children, Leanne Carrizales says money is tight.

Her health insurance isn’t enough to cover medical expenses, Carrizales added.

“The little help I can get from the government helps,” Carrizales said. 

Carrizales was able to get that extra help Thursday at the Mission Resource Center thanks to a partnership between the Food Bank of the Rio Grande Valley and Texas Health and Human Services to help people apply for assistance programs such as Medicaid, Medicare and SNAP.

“Last year was kinda hard, that's why I needed to apply this year because I know they are having testing done next month, and I know it is going to be expensive,” Carrizales said.

The partnership is part of a new traveling program kicked off by HHS.

“[We] mitigate traffic into our local office lobbies and try to come to the clients, come to them in their community to provide application assistance,” HHS spokesperson Kelly Williams said.

Food Bank of the RGV CEO Libby Saenz said food insecurity is high in the area.

“There are a lot of people that are in need, we have over 186,000 food insecure people in the Rio Grande Valley, so the need is there,” Saenz said. 

With the need so high in the Valley, future stops are planned.

“We definitely want to come where there is a need and so we will be having events quarterly next year, and we hope to come back to Mission at that time,” Williams said. 

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