Every month, Godfrey Lee Public School staff and student volunteers gather to package and hand out food at mobile food pantries. Anywhere from 10-25 volunteers eagerly go about their duties to ensure their neighbors receive a variety of nutritious food items efficiently before sending them on their way. As many as 110 families attend the mobile distributions, frequently expressing gratitude for the resources.
“They’re very happy,” Jackee Thompson, one of a larger team of mobile food pantry coordinators, said in a recent interview. “I want them to get a positive experience out of it. What I don’t want is for them to feel like they’re being judged for not having food, or for whatever reason. I’ve had some people be like, ‘Thank you so much for doing this. We really needed this.’ We have people that have big families. They’re happy just seeing that we’re there. And I know that a lot of them depend on it.”
The challenges faced in delivering food resources
In the seven years that Jackee has played a part in coordinating the mobile food pantries at Godfrey Lee Public Schools, the biggest challenge they’ve faced is not having enough food to give out to everyone who attends.
“Sometimes we don’t have enough products,” she said. “That was what happened this week. And that was the first time in a while. We still had probably about 15-20 cars, and we had to tell them we had run out of food. But as coordinators, we also let them know if they have students in one of the district buildings, there is a coordinator there who can help them with food security. If they need that food, they can reach out to their coordinator, and we will work with the local pantry to see if we can get them signed up for food there.”
The joy that stems from community support
On top of providing neighbors with several nutritious ingredients — like pinto beans, potatoes, peaches, tomatoes, yogurt, mushrooms, milk, cheese, juice, and more — the mobile food pantries serve as a wonderful volunteer opportunity for Godfrey Lee Public School students and are heavily supported by other community members.
“It’s something that our families look forward to,” Jackee explained. “We just had our food truck in August, but we’re already getting asked for September. I had a phone call with someone asking if they can help volunteer because a food truck wasn’t going to be happening at another school. And just seeing the support that’s out there for the community is very big for us. Knowing that in some ways, people could have food. That’s just huge for me.”
Despite the challenges they’ve faced, Jackee also expressed that she finds coordinating the mobile food pantries very rewarding.
“For me,” she said. “Just being there and doing community work, I love to do it. I’ve been doing it for seven years, and it just brings a joy to my heart.”
With the generous donations from grants, we’re able to continue providing food resources so that caring volunteers like Jackee can keep looking after their neighbors. To those generous donators and grantors, Jackee offered these words:
“There are a lot of families that need the food,” she said. “That depend on our food trucks. I’ve seen it firsthand, where families can maybe go weeks without anything, and that food truck is there to help them get food, at least for the week, for their students. Any help that they give us or give the food truck goes a long way. And not just for one food truck, but the ones we have throughout the year, any type of support that Feeding America gets supports a lot more families. So any type of support that any of our donors could give us will go a long way in helping our community.”