BROKEN BOW–Enough food to feed more than 500 families will be available to Custer County residents this week via the Food Bank for the Heartland‘s mobile food pantry, which will be visiting Broken Bow this Saturday, May 9 from about 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.
The food pantry will be held at the Berean Bible Church parking lot in Broken Bow located at 2419 Memorial Drive, Broken Bow, NE 68822 and will abide by CDC guidelines.
Local organizer Christie Trumbull said volunteers are navigating a new way of distributing food due to COVID-19 and said food will be distributed via curbside with no need for recipients to get out of their vehicles.
“It’s very new with the circumstances so my volunteers will be limited so we meet that guideline as well. They said we can have 10-15 volunteers. They will be wearing masks and gloves to protect themselves and to protect anybody that comes up. It will be kind of like the restaurants with the whole curbside service,” Trumbull said.
Volunteers will deliver food boxes to each car that will include enough items to feed a family of four for a week, such as canned goods, fresh produce, pasta, and baked goods.
The mobile food pantry program is non-income based and the only questions recipients will be asked are how many people are in their household and the corresponding age categories. Boxes of food can also be distributed to people picking up for others such as those who cannot leave their homes.
Trumbull has firsthand experience at running low on food with having hungry kids at home and being unable to make frequent trips to the grocery store. She said that because more people are home under Directed Health Measures during the global pandemic, this is the perfect time to take part in the Foodbank for the Heartland’s mobile pantry.
Typically, the food bank provides enough food to feed 250-300 families for a week, but during this time of need, Trumbull said there will be enough food to feed approximately 528 families.
“The only thing that has changed is it’s going to be a curbside service so I just ask for patience and I think it’ll go great! I really do. I think it will be awesome and we may even want to continue it this way,” Trumbull said.
Trumbull added that it is amazing to get phone calls from people wanting to help and she appreciates all of the volunteer support.
“Right now it is amazing that we can make this work. And with our community–we have an amazing community–and we all ban together and we try to help each other,” Trumbull said.
Trumbull told KCNI/KBBN that this program is not just for Broken Bow but rather all people in surrounding areas. If the food is not distributed, it will prove there is not a need and the mobile pantry might not come back again, she added.
The food truck will arrive around 7 or 7:30 a.m. and food will be distributed starting at 8:30 or 9 a.m. Call Christie Trumbull at 308-870-2275 to learn more about volunteering or receiving food this Saturday from the Foodbank for the Heartland.
