Saturday was a day full of good food and children’s joy and laughter as Hope Community Collective launched its mobile food pantry with a fun-filled event at City Park.
With the sun shining and music playing, children played on several water slides and the Friendship playground while the Hope Community Pantry was unveiled. Hope Community Collective spent six months renovating a work truck to become a mobile food pantry that will be able to serve the community in so many great ways.
Hope Community Collective Executive Director Juli Martinez said she was really pleased with the turnout and loved that they could provide some summer fun to the children. The event also helped spread the word that the Hope Community Pantry is ready to help Marion Countians.
“We’re so excited about being able to be innovative and bring food supplies in the rural communities, in places where food insecurity is high. We’re super grateful to have been able to execute this project,” she said. “It’s been many months. I think it’s really going to serve a lot of people and help a lot of people.”
The truck was designed to serve a dual purpose to also travel to accept donations.
“Our goal also is to take donations in,” Martinez said. “If any business wants to do a food drive or if any church wants to host a hot meal delivery, we can all come together as a team and serve hot meals off the truck, take food into the truck, serve groceries off the truck and have different projects around town. We’re hoping to be as creative as possible.”
The mobile food pantry will be scheduled to set up at a location in Marion County once per month to make it more convenient for eligible families to access supplemental food supplies. Currently, it is not able to make home deliveries.
Martinez added Hope Community Collective plans to listen to the needs of its regular pantry clients and do what needs to be done to serve them in the best way possible.
Hope Community Collective is located at 96 Mississippi 587 in Foxworth and can be reached at (601) 724-3628. It can also be reached on social media. Martinez encourages people to follow its Facebook page because it will be posting when and where they will be.
