New YMCA food truck helps reach and feed more kids

"It goes out every single day making sure the food gets delivered to our different 30 sights around the community."

FARGO, N.D. (KVRR) — A new food delivery truck is helping reach and feed more kids throughout the community.

“The mission of the Y is to make sure that we are here for all and when kids are hungry and kids don’t have full bellies, lots of things start to go wrong,” YMCA of Cass and Clay Counties President, Steve Smith said.

President of the YMCA of Cass and Clay Counties, Steve Smith says feeding kids aids in the development of young adults and with a new food truck it will ensure more kids are supported.

“This truck delivers meals to kids and makes sure that kids get fed regularly. Obviously food insecurity and the lack of food affects a child’s growth and ability to learn in school. So the Y has really stepped into this space to make sure that kids get a meal regularly,” Smith said.

With the new truck, operations will run much smoother than before.

“We’ve had a truck for a while, but this is a lot bigger We used to do it in people’s cars to get stuff out and about or we had to pay somebody else to take care of that and today now we are able to control all of it and be able to get it where it all needs to go and when you consider that we’re feeding kids and feeding teenagers this truck makes those types of things possible,” said Smith.

Smith says the truck has already made great strides in getting more food to people in need.

“This is a daily thing for us. It goes out every single day making sure the food gets delivered to our different 30 sights around the community. Right now we’re serving about 500 walk up meals where we hand out bags of five meals for the rest of the week to kids that are in need in our communities,” Smith said.

Due to the pandemic, Smith says there’s more of a demand to help out those in need.

“We’ve seen a massive uptick in the need of the community as families are trying to get through whether they are working or not working. I think the nice thing about the Y is we’re a no judgement zone. This is about us making sure that the community is healthy and can live to its full potential and kids especially and this truck is going to make sure that we do that,” said Smith.

Smith says he hopes the truck will provide more growth opportunities in the future.

“There are other places in the community that we may not be serving quite to the level that we can. So maybe we’re heading to different parts of the community that we weren’t able to serve prior to this. So we’re really looking forward to the growth opportunity that this truck provides,” Smith said.

Smith says the Y is in need of volunteers to continue feeding children in the community.

You can find a link for volunteer opportunities here.