This is not your ordinary food truck: New program will tackle Wichita food deserts
With prayer and church bells playing hymns in the background, the Salvation Army on Monday launched a very different kind of food truck aimed at bringing relief to Wichita’s food deserts.
The church, supported by several community partners, has detailed one of its disaster-relief trucks to serve as a mobile food pantry that will provide fresh, free and healthy food in three Wichita areas where it’s hard to come by.
“It’s going to be primarily nutritious items that are hard to find like fruits and vegetables, possibly some meats,” said Major Merrill Powers, Salvation Army area commander. “Anything you would need for the basics of a nutritious meal, we’re going to try to get out.”
The truck will set up four days a week from 2 to 6 p.m. near three Wichita community centers: Goldenrod, 1340 S. Pattie, on Mondays; Fairmount, 1647 N. Yale, on Wednesdays; and Colvin, 2820 S. Roosevelt, on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
The sites were chosen because they’re in the midst of the city’s food deserts, areas with large populations of lower income residents and without full-service grocery store chains.
“We don’t have a grocery store, there’s nothing over here that supplies us,” said Lawrence Willis, who lives on South Lulu and came to the truck’s first stop at Goldenrod on Monday.
“So what we get right now is what we have. It’s all we have. My daughter stays right over there, a couple of houses down. She can’t even get anything, OK? She’s got to go all the way to Walmart (at Broadway and Pawnee) to get her some food. If she can get her some food ... they are short of this and they’re short of that. They don’t have any meats, they don’t have any vegetables sometimes.”
Of the 165 square miles in Wichita’s city limits, the most recent data shows that 44 square miles is considered food desert — and that was before the closure of the Save A Lot grocery store in northeast Wichita last summer. At least one in four Wichitans lives in a food desert.
The mobile pantry can help, but it’s more stopgap than long-term, Powers said. The Salvation Army is using its disaster relief van for the effort and doesn’t plan to repaint it, because they’re hoping to buy time to come up with a more permanent answer.
“This idea of having a pantry that can go to different locations where the need exists is something that will be a short-term solution as we prepare for a long-term solution working with the communities around us,” Powers said.
The participants in Monday’s dedication ceremony included Mike Hoheisel and Brandon Johnson, two City Council members with large areas of food desert in south and northeast Wichita.
“This is a first step,” said Hoheisel. “And the answers have to come from the community. That’s who we’re going to have to engage in order to adequately address the issue . . . this is an all-hands-on-deck approach that we’re going to have to have.”
There are several partners in the food-desert offensive. The Salvation Army is providing the truck and workers; the Kansas Food Bank is providing food; the Kansas Health Foundation donated $50,000 Monday; United Way is helping coordinate the program; and the city of Wichita is donating the use of park space.
This story was originally published February 28, 2022 at 2:58 PM.
