Any church or other 501(c)(3) non-profit organization can host a Mobile Pantry. It takes about two hours and costs about $500 to host a pantry distribution of 5,000 pounds–a 3- to 4-day supply of food for 100 families. For a little more, you can arrange for as much as 10,000 pounds. We charge just enough to cover fuel, truck, maintenance, driver and other staff costs.
You’ll need to fill out some paperwork and arrange to use a parking lot, which you can probably “borrow” for an afternoon from a church, school or office park. You’ll also need about 8 folding banquet tables and 12 volunteers to help unload food, answer questions, direct traffic and clean up the site afterwards.
To find out when you can observe a Mobile Pantry hosted by another organization, contact Ryan VanMaldegen at (616) 389-6360. Click here to download a .pdf brochure.
