RENO — The number of locals seeking help from Nevada food banks has exploded since 2006, according to a study released Tuesday.

More than 124,200 people, including 49,556 children, receive emergency food service each year through the Food Bank of Northern Nevada. The findings represent a 298 percent increase since the last food bank report, titled “Hunger in America,” in 2006.

“The stories are usually about how they lost their jobs and they are not sure where to go or what to do,” said Emily White, Food Bank mobile food pantry coordinator.

The woman stood near the open back of a large truck Tuesday, handing white plastic bags of food to many who came by in the Tripp Drive neighborhood near Clear Acre Avenue and McCarran Boulevard.

“I have seen an increase,” added White, who has worked for the food bank for two years.

Tuesday afternoon, more than 30 people asked for food from the truck, most of them with large families, White said.

“This report highlights something that we’ve known was happening in our communities for a while,” explained Cherie Jamason, president and CEO of the Food Bank of Northern Nevada. “The extremely high unemployment rate in Nevada, topping at over 13 percent, has forced clients to choose between paying for rent, utilities, health care and other basic essentials. This report shows that 44 percent of people served in northern Nevada had to choose between paying for food or paying for rent, mortgage or utilities.”

According to the report, the number of children needing food from a local pantry has increased by 333 percent since 2006, adding that one in four children know what it means to go hungry because of low income.

Each person who came to the food bank’s mobile pantry on Tuesday was asked to fill out a form detailing their general income, ethnicity, ages and some other information.

“Our grant writers, they want very specific information,” White said.

The hungry then received a bag of food, filled with some vegetables from area growers.

The report was a result of some face-to-face interviews conducted at food pantries across north America.

The methodology incorporated into the 2010 study includes data collected from February through June 2009. The Food Bank of Northern Nevada conducted face-to-face interviews with 267 people seeking emergency food at food pantries, soup kitchens and other emergency feeding programs, as well as interviews with more than 82 agencies that provide food assistance, according to a release from the food bank.

Nationally, the Feeding America organization collected quantitative and qualitative feedback from 61,000 face-to-face in-depth interviews with people seeking emergency food assistance and more than 37,000 agency surveys, making this study the largest, most comprehensive ever conducted on domestic hunger.

The USDA reported in November 2009 that an estimated 49 million people, including 17 million children, are at risk of hunger nationwide.