Monday night was the first food run for the recently finished PACS COW Mobile Pantry (COW stand for “commodities on wheels”). Food was provided to 21 families (a total of 91 people) from 6 – 8 p.m.
The pantry is the brainchild of PACS’ Executive Director, Paul L. Cole, who developed the “client choice” mobile pantry concept after a volunteer asked how we could help people in her neighborhood, where there were many needy families, but no food pantries. The concept is designed to reduce the time and financial stress for these families, caused by the need for long drives or bus rides to the nearest emergency food center.
The PACS COW was built from a snowmobile trailer, converted on the inside to include shelves and lighting in a walkthrough, grocery store-style setup that works like PACS’ on-site food pantry in NE Portland.
Here are some pictures of the first PACS COW opening, hosted in
Troutdale, Oregon by
Frontier Missions:
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| The exit ramp at the back of the trailer can also double as an entrance to facilitate handicapped access. |
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| Volunteer, Rosemary Loum, organizes the shelves before food clients arrive. |
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| Clients have arrived! |
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| PACS Basic Services Manager, Traci White, and Frontier Missions Warehouse & Marketing Manager, Greg Kennedy, review the information of two clients, before sending them through the mobile pantry to choose their food items. |
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| David Roberts, a PACS volunteer and board member, guides a mother and her two little girls through the food selection process. |
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| Doug Shackelford, Warehouse Manager for Sunshine Division, partnered with us to help with the mobile pantry launch. Here, he helps a woman figure out how much she can take from the Green section. In both the mobile and on-site PACS food pantries, food is arranged and color coded by the food groups of the USDA Food Pyramid (green is vegetables). |
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| Paul Cole, PACS Executive Director, entertains a group of kids waiting for their mother to finish selecting food. |
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| PACS volunteer, Brittany Abelein, helps a woman fill her cart. |
This is really cool!
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful opportunity to reach many more people with help. An approach like this would also be beneficial to inner cities communities that do not have stores offering them fresh produce.
ReplyDeleteWhat a fabulous idea! Great work Pastor Paul!
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