Pensacola, Florida
Carriage boxes loaded with sausages, baked beans and potato chips provide more than just food for Oaklodge Mobile Home Park residents.
The warm meals – distributed free by Dignity Food Truck outside Vero Beach – provided a few moments of stability and a respite from the mental agony that West Pensacola residents endure after being hit hard by Hurricane Sally.
“It’s a blessing,” said Oaklodge resident Rachel Breeze, as she waited outside the van to have lunch in a box of beverage. “It lets you know that there is human compassion out there.”
Dignity Food Truck made a 13-hour journey from Vero Beach to serve the most devastated Sally area of Pensacola between Tuesday and Thursday. The truck was launched by Vero Beach’s Christian Outreach Department known as The Source, which partnered with Myrtle Grove Baptist Church in the three-day takeover initiative.
The source’s CEO, Anthony Zorbo, said he had given little thought to driving to Pensacola to feed those in need when he first heard of the devastation.
“So this food truck is a cooking training program for the homeless, to get them back to work and give them training in real time,” Zorbu said. “That was the original mission.” “We knew people needed here, so we kind of turned around and said, ‘How do we help our brothers and sisters here?”
Dignity Food Truck has been moving to various locations for breakfast, lunch, and dinner since Tuesday. Will be back to Viru Beach on Friday morning.
The truck was camping mostly in the Warrington-area neighborhoods near Myrtle Grove Baptist Church on Lillian Highway, but it also served Bristol Park residents late Wednesday afternoon.
On Wednesday morning, Al Karama staff distributed 325 breakfasts while in the church parking lot. They also distributed about 100 lunches to those in Oaklodge, which included resident Samantha with a gun, who stood patiently with her young daughters to collect four meals for her family around one in the afternoon. Wednesday.
The purchase said the CEO of the Myrtle Grove Baptist Church called her this week and asked her if the caravan park she was staying in would be a good place to help.
“I told him yes, because there are a lot of old people here and a lot of people without transportation that could really use something like this,” said Buy. “So why not? Lots of people, like someone on the corner over there, their trailer tree crashed. Someone else’s car was grossed out.”
Zorbo said his four-person crew are not distributing food and they just leave. They are talking and communicating with the people who are struggling the most at the moment.
“We don’t want to be just a normal kitchen for the poor, where you can eat and roll,” he said. “We want to touch and interact with people.”
To illustrate his point, Zorbo spoke of how he would support a small business owner who makes a living by purchasing a diagram drawn by an Oaklodge resident.
“He was going crazy, he was like, ‘What? Zorbu. “We believe in community, in bringing people together and being there for the people.”
One of the 4 people providing a source of help to struggling Pensacolians this week fights himself hard.
Billy Jackson is homeless in Vero Beach. But he is trying to change the course of his life by taking advantage of the Source culinary training program in hopes of landing a job in the food service industry in the future.
“We don’t want to be just a normal kitchen for the poor, where you can eat and roll,” he said. “We want to touch and interact with people.”
To illustrate his point, Zorbo spoke of how he would support a small business owner who makes a living by purchasing a diagram drawn by an Oaklodge resident.
“He was going crazy, he was like, ‘What? Zorbu. “We believe in community, in bringing people together and being there for the people.”
One of the 4 people providing a source of help to struggling Pensacolians this week fights himself hard.
Billy Jackson is homeless in Vero Beach. But he’s trying to change his life path by taking advantage of the Source’s culinary training program in hopes of landing a job in the food service industry in the future.
Jackson gets paid a week as long as he cooks and serves in Dignity. While taking a quick breather between meals on Wednesday, Jackson said it pays to raise the bar for people who need it, even as he deals with his struggles.
“It’s easy for me to talk,” Jackson said. “I feel good because I can help people who are going through a difficult time.”
Thursday’s schedule for the Dignity Food Truck looks like this:
Breakfast: Beach Haven Baptist Church, 821 Winton Ave.
Lunch: Between Westwood Christian Church and Meadowbrook Park, on Flaxman Street and N. 57th Ave.
Dinner: Quiet Villas (5221 Flaxman Street) and Myrtle Grove Villas (5398 Lilian Highway)
