Kansas Food Bank hosts monthly drive-thru mobile pantry in Garden City
4 min read
Kansas Food Bank held their fourth drive-thru mobile pantry in Garden City Thursday at The Community Church.
They brought 12,000 pounds of food to give out to 250 area families.
Debi Kruetzman, Kansas Food Bank community relations manager, said the organization has been running mobile food pantries for 10 years and are typically done in communities that lack, or have limited, pantry service.
Food insecurity has increased tremendously since the COVID-19 pandemic started, Kruetzman said, so sponsors such as Tyson Foods, who have sponsored the Garden City mobile pantry, have approached them about doing something in the communities where their employees “live, work and play.”
Garden City’s mobile pantry has been sponsored by Tyson Foods for one week a month for 12 months, having started in May.
Kruetzman said Kansas Food Banks really saw the need for food skyrocket in March and April of 2020, when the pandemic first hit.
“Our agencies were recording about a 30% to 40% increase in the number of people that were coming for help,” she said. “Currently here in Garden City, we work with Emmaus House and we also work with the Salvation Army, they too were reporting an increase in numbers, so part of our response is to help figure out what we can do to either get more food to them to meet that need or do special events like this, mobile pantries, that are reaching people that may not be going to the pantry.”
People don’t utilize food pantries for many reasons, but mainly because of pride, Kruetzman said. The pandemic has made a change in that, more people are utilizing food pantries.
The beauty of a mobile food pantry is patrons are only asked about how many people are in their household, the number of children and adults, and they’re not asked for any proof of income or proof of residence, Kruetzman said.
“We’re simply trying to make it as barrier free as possible.”
Holly Pruitt, who volunteered to distribute food boxes at the mobile pantry, was happy to be out there helping people.
She has come out more than once with her employer, American AgCredit, to help at the mobile pantry and at Emmaus House and believes it’s something that should be replicated in other places.
“I think that it should be done in every city, because you have no idea the people in this city that are in need,” she said. “This is great, no one knows who they are or what they need, we’re just helping those that feel the need to come. It’s marvelous.”
Andrea Gallegos, Genesis Family Health community liaison, helps coordinate the efforts through Tyson and the Food Bank and is glad at how collaborative the distribution is.
Not only does Tyson Foods and American AgCredit send out employees to help distribute and group the food but members of The Community Church, St. Catherine Hospital and LiveWell Finney County, Garden City Police Department and the city of Garden City have also helped out with volunteers, distribution and running the event, Gallegos said.
“Everybody’s coming together in collaboration on this effort has been amazing,” she said. “If we can get the entire community involved it just makes things so so much smoother.”
The food boxes are what Kansas Food Bank calls a heart healthy box, Kruetzman said. In their last hunger study it showed about 47% of the household they serve had somebody living with heart disease, so they offer a box with more heart-healthy products – vegetables low in sodium and fruits packed in their natural juices rather than in heavy syrup.
“Being able to offer more heart-healthy, fresh items has been important to us and was also important to Tyson,” Kruetzman said. “In addition their heart-healthy box that Tyson is covering, the Kansas Food Bank has been providing produce boxes because we know produce is the first thing that people give up at the grocery store when they’re cash strapped. So being able to offer a fresh produce box for folks is really important.”
The boxes Thursday included peaches, potatoes, bell peppers and apples and because Kansas Food Bank had extra items available to them they also gave out cabbage and grapes.
Also, Kansas Food Bank received a $1 million grant from a donor that allowed them to offer additional dry bag containing cereal, canned chicken, a cheesy dinner and hamburger helper, Kruetzman reported.
“With this grant they wanted us to provide additional items that we weren’t normally giving out,” she said. “Those things are not in our heart-healthy box, so we found that by offering these additional items it’s giving folks additional meals, putting those mission meals on their table.”
