When you think of local communities the recession has hit hardest, the town of Knox may not even cross your mind.

But Starke County is one of the areas still struggling the hardest and folks there got a little extra help Tuesday.

The Food Bank of Northern Indiana’s mobile food pantry rumbled its way southwest from South Bend into Starke County, which still has a 15% unemployment rate.

It's the first time the truck's made its way into Knox, but if things go as planned, it won't be the last.

When the truck pulled in, nearly 100 people were waiting.

“It really amazed me because I didn’t think there'd be this many people here,” said Gary Ignite, a Knox resident who took advantage of the pantry’s visit.

But the people behind the visit say the crowd was no surprise.

“We're just under served in this county,” said Jamie Cripe with the Food Bank of Northern Indiana.

“Starke County has always been one of the worst counties, I believe the worst county, for years for unemployment rate and just poverty,” said Pastor Jerry Patrick of the United Pentecostal Church in Knox, which hosted the mobile pantry in its parking lot.

“It makes you feel kind of embarrassed but you gotta do what you gotta do sometimes when you got kids at home,” said Derek Holland.

Holland’s story is unfortunately common; laid off and struggling.

“It's obviously just not me it's more of a crisis right now, more than anything as far as the economy goes,” Holland said, looking around at the others in line in the parking lot.

The mobile pantry is available to anyone, all you have to do is sign your name and you can get bags full of fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, even treats. There are no financial requirements.

“I've been here almost 38 years and I've never seen it this bad people not being able to work having to go to food pantries,” Ignite said.

But one problem is there aren't many permanent food pantries in the Knox area.

“Since the economy got so bad we just know there's a lot of people out there that need help and haven’t got any place to go,” Cripe said.

“Unfortunately this is just a band aid. We need to be down here we need to have a permanent set up where we can come down here. That's our big goal our long range goal is to find some more churches down in this county that are willing to have regular distributions,” Cripe said.

But in the meantime, this ‘band-aid’ at least aims to slow the bleeding.

“For a few days, somebody might have a little less stress because they don’t have to wonder where they're next meal's going to come from,” Cripe said.

“This is a good thing they're doing; it's a really good thing,” Holland said.

Pastor Patrick’s church just opened their own food pantry earlier this year. He says in virtually no time, they saw 50 families coming to them every week for help, and there's only one other large food pantry in the town.

“We're just under served in this county we have a six county coverage are and this is just one where we haven’t been able to find too many organizations that are willing to participate in having a regular food pantry,” Cripe said.

Cripe hope stops like these might help make that happen, by gaining more visibility for the food bank, and highlighting the need in the area.