A drive-through food distribution held over the weekend in in Vermilion County is helping hundreds of area families. Molly Delaney, Vice President of Development for the Eastern Illinois Foodbank, says it marked the first time a drive-through was used….
{‘’It kind of is because of what’s happening with the CDC guidelines, and being able to get food out to people who still need it – but still keeping everyone safe,’’ said Delaney. ‘’So we have different stations with different types of food at them. We have volunteers who are just getting information as people drive-up with their window open. They tell us whether or not they want the product, and then our volunteers load it directly into their car. So we’re eliminating any contact.’’}
Delaney noted it was a ‘supplemental distribution’….
{‘’It’s a far cry from the variety that we usually have with the Foodmobile. We have a canned meal product. We have family pies, canned peaches. We have gallons of milk. We have heads of lettuce. We have cabbage, and we have frozen pork fritters,’’ said Delaney. ‘’Normally we have a much wider variety, but I think today this really enables us to get the food to people quickly.’’}
[Volunteers and Foodbank staff worked to get the food distributed. Click on the photos to enlarge.]
{‘’We have retailers who partner with us, and we get their surplus of products. So, as things get close to the expired date on the shelves of the store, the stores normally start to pull them and then they restock their supplies, and we get that donated surplus. Unfortunately, because the stores have been wiped-out of certain types of foods we’re not getting those same kind of donations from our retail partners that we (normally) do.’’}
[Molly Delaney, Vice President of Development for the Eastern Illinois Foodbank.]
{‘’At this point the best thing that people can do is make a financial contribution. So, they can do that right online without leaving their home. They can go to www.eifoodbank.org and when they land on our website there will be a COVID-19 Support place where they can just click to donate right there.’’}
Delaney says that over the past week alone the foodbank started serving 2,300 people across East Central Illinois that it had never served before.
