Mobile pantry from Kraft provides food to people in need

By James Edward Mills

Bell Wagester pushes a shopping cart across a crowded parking lot. But she’s not headed to the supermarket. Instead, Wagester is queuing up with a host of others to make her selections from a shiny new mobile food pantry. Kraft Foods donated this motor coach to Second Harvest to help deliver much needed food to families throughout southern Wisconsin.

Parked at Mount Zion Baptist Church on Madison’s South Side, this mobile food pantry offers both convenience and variety as nearby residents supplement their meals in a lagging economy.

“It really helps us get the whole grain breads and stuff that we like that we can’t afford to buy at the store,” Wagester said. “And there are some name-brand things there too that we can’t afford to get. And that really helps us for the month.”

Wagester is one of more than 85,000 people in southwestern Wisconsin who need food assistance. Although she and her husband are both employed, having ready access to packaged non-perishables, bread, fresh produce and dairy is just the boost they need to get by.

“We don’t really qualify that much as far as food share programs and that stuff goes,” Wagester said. “And as our jobs are designed, we’re usually just over the income limits for getting what help would be really beneficial to us. So we try to get whatever we can wherever we can and stock up.”

Jim Hyne, senior director of human resources at Kraft, said his company’s partnership with Second Harvest is a good match.

“It’s important to us as a food company. It’s a natural for us to partner with an organization that’s trying to end hunger across the United States and across the world,” Hyne said. “So for us the donation of this truck as well as the food and the financial contributions help make us a good corporate citizen in the communities where we live and work.”

In addition to the vehicle, valued at $125,000, Kraft aims to contribute $4.5 million in cash over the next five years.

“And it’s our hope that we will roll out 25 of these pantries, which will impact a lot of people across the United States,” Hyne said.

Monetary donations to Second Harvest go a lot further toward feeding the hungry than contributions of food, said incoming CEO Dan Stein.

“Second Harvest never knows what is going to be donated. Sometimes we get a lot of products in of a certain kind and not enough of others,” he said. “The money allows us to supplement what we have to provide a more rounded offering to people.”

By leveraging relationships with many different food vendors, Second Harvest can essentially buy in bulk, Stein said. That way, the charity can provide community residents with exactly what they need and want most. And now, with a fleet of eight mobile food pantries equipped with refrigeration, Second Harvest can get into more communities without incurring the cost of permanent distribution facilities.

“Right now we are serving 23 mobile pantries a month in 10 counties of the 16 we serve. Our hope is to expand that to 30,” Stein said. “We have several organizations in areas that we don’t serve at the present time. This new mobile pantry will afford us the ability to grow. ”
 

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