In a perfect world, food would flow out of food banks and into the hands of those who need it fast enough to keep any of it from spoiling. In the real world, a large batch of ripe bananas can show up at a food bank on Friday after most food pantries have picked up their food for the week, a food bank can be offered more of a particular perishable prduct than the agencies it serves could possibly transport and store, or there may not be enough pantries to meet the need in a neighborhood or community. In those cases food spoils, and needy people remain hungry.

In 1998 a beer delivery truck inspired our food bank to develop a way of overcoming those problems. We realized that if we had the same kind of beverage delivery trucks that beer, soda pop and bottled water companies have, we could load those trucks with our closed code-dated and surplus perishable food supplies, drive the truck to wherever supplemental food resources were needed and have a host agency distribute goods to needy people directly from the truck without the agency having had to transport or store anything!

A trailer donated by 7-Up Bottling of Grand Rapids and a grant from The UPS Foundation put two tractors and three trailers on the road as our first mobile food pantries in October, 1998. The program was a huge success from the day it began. We now run eight mobile units which between them do 75-100 distributions of 5,000, 7,500, or 10,000 lbs. per month, letting us save millions more pounds of food than we otherwise could, and letting us serve thousands of needy people we couldn't reach any other way. As of the end of 2007, at least 70 other food banks around the U.S. have copied this West Michigan innovation.

Mobile pantry programs operations are very simple: Any church or other 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that would like to distribute food to the needy can sign up to be able to use the food bank. They don't have to own a building or have a "normal" food pantry. Many of our mobile pantry agencies just borrow a parking lot for a few hours (school parking lots after school lets out work very well!). They either tell us the day, time and place they'd like to be able to do their distribution(s), or we help them find a site in a neighborhood or community that needs additional pantry services. After we confirm that we have a truck available for that date/time, the agency can leaflet the neighborhood, send notes home with kids from the school, etc. announcing to potential clients when and where the distribution will take place. They can also recruit about a dozen volunteers to staff the event, and can come up with tables to set up around the truck.

On the day of the distribution we load the truck with whatever quantity of food the host agency has indicated they think they will need (5,000 lbs., 7,500 lbs., or 10,000 lbs.), striving to assemble the nicest collection of goods we can from whatever array of perishable (and sometimes non-perishable) products we happen to have on hand at the moment. A mobile pantry's load will typically include fruit, vegetables, dairy products, baked goods, and ???? - Every truck is an adventure! Our goal is that every client household served by the distribution will walk away from it with about 50 lbs. of goods they can and will use.

When the truck arrives at the distribution site, the host agency's volunteers set up tables around the truck and load them with product. Clients simply walk around the truck just as they would at a farmers' market, selecting the goods they would like. When the last client has been served, the volunteers simply load any leftovers back onto the truck, leaving the parking lot as clean as it was before the distribution.

Mobile pantries are a quick, easy, inexpensive way to help hundreds of people with food that otherwise might well have gone to waste.

Want to see a mobile pantry in action? The top picture on the right is actually a movie!

Want to learn more or schedule a mobile pantry? Call us at (616) 784-3250.