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San Mateo – At 8:30 on a gray Thursday morning, Ines Flores, age 75 and towing a blue wagon, arrived at the front of a snaking line she joined more than an hour ago.
“Five families,” she said. “Please.”
Volunteers quickly loaded her wagon and filled her shopping bags with cartons of milk, dozens of eggs, lettuce, carrots, bell peppers, apples, watermelon, beans. Later she would share everything with families from her church who were busy working.
“The problem is there are so many poor people,” the Daly City resident said. “Life is so expensive. How are they going to pay the rent and buy food?”
That’s a question faced by thousands of individuals and families across San Mateo County.
By most measures, San Mateo is one of the wealthiest counties in the United States with the nation’s fifth highest median household income. Yet numbers can mask a reality that plays out daily at food distribution sites and pantries from Daly City to East Palo Alto to Pescadero.
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