GREEN BAY, Wisc. (SPECTRUM NEWS) — The volunteers have the movement down to an art and a science.
They stand while holding the plain brown boxes waiting for the next vehicle to pull up. As soon as it stops, a small group of people dressed in t-shirts, shorts and orange vests quickly loads the boxes in trunks and backs of cars, SUVs and pickup trucks.
The process then repeats itself — hundreds of times.
The scene is part of a Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin mobile drive-through food pantry in Green Bay. The weekly pantries have helped thousands of people thus far and are expected to help thousands more in the coming weeks.
“Even though things are starting to slowly reopen, there were a lot of people affected by COVID and that effect is going to trickle down for weeks and months to come,” says Dustin Herrmann, the volunteer engagement coordinator with the organization. “A lot of people are still struggling to get back on their feet even though things are opening up, and that’s what we’re here for. It’s to at least take one less thing off off their plate in terms of worrying about if they’re going to be able to put food on the table.”
The pandemic is leaving a deep economic scar across the state and nation.
More than 650,000 people in Wisconsin have sought unemployment benefits from the state since mid-March. While many are returning to work, others are not. Pantries nationwide say they’ve seen an uptick in the number of people seeking help.
Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin is offering similar mobile pantries in more than a half dozen communities in the northeast part of the state this month. They’re working in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help both people in need, and farmers.
“With COVID striking, the farmers had less outlets for their food,” Herrmann says. “A lot of the food was going to waste, they were losing money and the USDA stepped in to help them out.”
Mary Ann Weed of Appleton is one of those well-choreographed volunteers helping load cars. She works alongside her teenage daughters.
“We try to serve and look outside of ourselves, especially right now where there’s a lot of time and we can do good things,” she says.
Information about the mobile pantries can be found here.