LAWRENCE, Ind. — Thursday's mobile food bank in Lawrence fed over a thousand people, no questions asked.
“We don’t know anybody’s situation. We might see somebody with a nice car and say, ‘Why are they getting a food box?’ They may have lost their job two months ago,” said Shawn Denney, Lawrence Community Parks Foundation.
The foundation hosted the event along with Gleaner’s Food Bank of Indiana and Lawrence Township Schools, with dozens of volunteers from Community Health and the Community Emergency Response Team.
This was the second mobile food bank in Lawrence during the pandemic.
“During the first one, we had a thousand people come through,” said Elia James, a Lawrence Township Trustee.
Much of the food is going to school-age children who are currently learning from home and would otherwise be getting breakfast and lunch if they were in school.
“The last thing kids in our community, we want them to have to worry about, is having enough energy to do their work,” said Lisa Chavis, Lawrence Council president.
“We’ve encountered families that are struggling at home, but we’ve also encountered people that are living out of their vehicle that are stopping by,” James said.
“It’s really helping out a lot of people,” said Patrick Cosgrove, a dry cleaning business owner who came for help after struggling for months when sales slowed. “Didn’t leave much for necessities like food, so things like this help out wonderfully,” said Cosgrove.
That’s why the organizers of Thursday’s event say they’ll be doing more because the need will continue.