WEST MONROE – The Food Bank of Central New York will host a mobile food pantry Tuesday, August 3 in the parking lot of Life Church. The food bank will distribute food at 2363 New York Route 49 starting at 4 p.m. in a socially distant manner according to a Facebook post from the Oswego County Health Department.
The mobile food pantry is something that was established prior to the COVID-19 pandemic but has made it easier to follow health guidelines. Since events like these are already outside, it helped recipients maintain social distancing while waiting for their food. Despite this, early in the pandemic it was difficult to establish these guidelines when people “did not really know what to expect,” as Brian McManus the Chief Operations Officer of the food bank explained.
“Once we established the health guidelines to follow, masks, social distancing, we were able to set up outdoor distributions,” McManus said. “It proved to be one of the most effective ways of getting people the resources they needed.”
The mobile food pantry helps accomplish the food bank’s mission of “working to eliminate hunger through nutritious food distribution,” as expressed on its website. While nutritious foods, mainly fresh fruits and vegetables, tend to spoil, the food bank has created an efficient supply chain that can get the produce to people within the same day.
“We are able to connect [produce] very quickly,” McManus said. “We receive a lot of donated goods from area grocery stores, and because of this mobile food pantry system, we are able to take those from the store and have it connected to someone’s home in the same day. We really avoid any spoilage or deterioration of the product.”
McManus added that the mobile food pantry is a climate controlled vehicle that keeps everything fresh. The Food Bank of Central New York typically offers fresh produce due to the difficulty some face when trying to buy it. For many, access is restricted to these important, nutritious ingredients.
“It’s super important that people get [fresh produce] because we know that those can be the types of items that people either don’t have access to or they are priced out of being able to choose,” McManus said. “Unhealthier foods tend to be cheaper, and when someone is facing food insecurity, fresh fruits and vegetables are sometimes not an option for them.”
The Food Bank of Central New York brings the mobile food pantry to Oswego County typically two or three times a month as it has 10 other counties in Central and North New York to cover. Despite this, it also provides a lot of food to other agencies in these counties, according to McManus, that then go on to distribute the food themselves. To find more of these distribution sites and when the mobile food pantry will be in Oswego again, people can use the “Find Food” tab on the food bank’s website.
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