GraceWorks Ministries

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Mobile Food Pantry Impact

Grace comes rolling into Fairview twice a month and leaves filled pantries and smiling faces in its wake.

GraceWorks’ Mobile Food Pantries bring nutrition and compassion to Neighbors in need and who through disability, undependable transportation or not enough money for gas can’t make the 26-mile trip to the main Food Pantry in Franklin. 

 

At 7 a.m. on a given Saturday a semitruck from Second Harvest and paid for by a sponsor pulls into the Fairview Middle School parking lot. It’s packed with fresh produce, canned goods, and other items Second Harvest has on hand. 

 

Brent Moelker, GraceWorks’ Mobile Food Pantry/Program Coordinator, has been there for an hour already. He spends that time visiting with waiting Neighbors who have been lining up in their cars since 4:30 a.m. 

Joe* sat in his car, pipe in mouth, is a regular. He comes every month at 5:30 a.m. for food for himself and his wife. They are retired. live on $2,000 a month and are not able to drive to Franklin. 


“I wouldn’t be able to make it without this pantry,” he tells Brent.

Judy* and her husband, Bill*, also come each month. Bill has a type of blood cancer, and his treatments have prevented him from getting very far from home. He enjoys the camaraderie and the festive spirit at the mobile pantry, as well as obtaining food needed to cut at least one household expense.

Indeed, the Saturday morning atmosphere at Fairview Middle is cheery. Music plays from a loudspeaker as 60 to 80 volunteers unload the truck, sort the food onto tables, start filling shopping carts and opening for business at 8 a.m. sharp.

Cars line up 18 at a time, and in a couple of hours, pantry workers are finished serving about 150 cars representing 400 to 500 people.

“We can do 18 cars in 10 minutes,” Brent said. “Thirty people put food into carts and roll them out to the cars. Nine to 12 volunteers stand by the line and load the food directly into the cars.”

And everybody smiles, he said. Neighbors, volunteers, staff enjoy a Saturday morning of serving each other.

A second, smaller mobile food pantry is conducted for about 30 residents of Maple Village, an apartment community for older independent adults. Boxes of food are assembled at GraceWorks, and members of South Harpeth Church of Christ deliver them.

Smiles abound there, too, Brent said. The church had been looking for a way to serve with GraceWorks for a long time.

“You can really feel the hand of the Lord in this,” Brent said.

*GraceWorks does not reveal actual names to protect confidentially.

1 thought on “Mobile Food Pantry Impact”

  1. As a resident of Maple Village we appreciate so very much the box of food that we get. For most of us it helps so that we don’t have to spend our Limited income for food and we’re able to purchase medicines and toiletries each month. Thank you GraceWorks for always being there for us.

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