Kim Meyer, who is holding a bag of apples, waits for a recipient to pull up their car to a stop with other volunteers and staff, who are also holding other food items. Photo by Ashley Chong/NNS
More than 100 recipients queued up in their cars to receive food at a drive-thru food distribution from the Food Bank of Lincoln at Star City Shores on Oct. 26, in Lincoln.
The Food Bank of Lincoln serves Southeast Nebraska and has multiple food services like the drive-thru food distribution services and produce distribution in rural areas. The food bank has a monthly schedule on its website for daily food distribution locations.
With winter approaching, it’s practical for recipients to drive to a distribution site and stay warm in their cars. Not only is it useful for the recipients but a drive-thru format is efficient for staff and volunteers to distribute food to a huge volume of recipients.
The process of distributing food is a complex one. The food bank receives food from donors and transports it to the distribution warehouse, then to the distributing site, said Arielle Eschbaugh, warehouse distribution center coordinator. The entire process may take about an hour or up to a whole day.
The organization receives food donations from local grocery stores, with Walmart, Costco and Russ’s Market being the current largest donors, Eschbaugh said. She said the stores sign a contract with the food bank through Feeding America to give away food that they don’t use or is close to the end of its shelf life. Feeding America is a nonprofit organization that helps feed and connect people to food banks in the country.
“I look at it as a recycling program,” Eschbaugh said. “Instead of throwing away perfectly good food, we just give it a second life to people who can use it.”
Ciara Dickson, a distribution center assistant, said the food bank decides what food to distribute based on the donations they receive– bread, apples, potatoes, eggs and whole frozen chicken were Tuesday’s items.
Dickson and Eschbaugh worked alongside four volunteers on Tuesday. Dickson said that the volunteers were already at the distribution site when the food truck arrived.
“Most volunteers are recurring, so they already know what to do,” Dickson said. “It’s like their second job.”
David Dzickowski-Cygan has been volunteering at the food bank for eight months. The biggest element of working at a distribution site is to make sure recipients are getting the type of food that they need, Dzickowski-Cygan said.
“If someone doesn’t eat meat, we will give them extra potatoes or anything we got,” Dzickowski-Cygan said.
The food distribution process starts off with Eschbaugh motioning cars up to the distribution point one at a time while the volunteers get an item from the food pile. One of the staff or volunteers asks the recipient how many people are in their household, then everyone starts putting food in the recipient’s car trunk. The last person who puts the food in closes the trunk, and the team repeats the process until the last recipient.
Aside from Lincoln, the food bank serves 16 other counties surrounding Lincoln. The food bank expanded its services at a new facility located by the Lincoln airport to meet the growing demand of people who need food, Eschbaugh said.
“We’ll always be here until the last hungry person is fed,” Eschbaugh said.
Arielle Eschbaugh, warehouse distribution center coordinator of the Food Bank of Lincoln, signals a recipient to come forward to a stop at the food distribution site. Eschbaugh is responsible for driving the truck and managing food at the distribution center. With the food bank expanding its location, Eschbaugh said the food bank has been trying to get more staff and volunteers to manage its operations. “With more staff, the more availability we have to distribute food at more places, like rural areas where food access is a lot more scarce,” Eschbaugh said. When she saw that the food bank was hiring, she decided to quit her nine to five job and join the food bank two years ago. “It gave me a good reason to get up in the morning knowing that I’m helping people, instead of just feeding a corporation,” Eschbaugh said. Photo by Ashley Chong/NNS
Kim Meyer, a volunteer at the Food Bank of Lincoln, takes a bag of apples from a box and prepares to put it in a recipient’s car trunk at the food distribution site. The staff and volunteers moved fast to distribute all of the food to more than 100 recipients. Photo by Ashley Chong/NNSEd Tricker, a volunteer at the Food Bank of Lincoln, picks up a bag of potatoes from a box to put in a recipient’s car trunk at the food distribution site. The staff and volunteers worked non-stop to distribute all of the food to more than 100 recipients. Photo by Ashley Chong/NNSCiara Dickson, the distribution center assistant of the Food Bank of Lincoln, holds a loaf of bread to be put into a recipient’s car trunk at the food distribution site. Dickson is in charge of managing trucks, donation orders, sending food out to agencies and distribution orders, and maintaining the condition of the distribution center. Currently, the food bank is short-staffed, and it is harder for them to find truck drivers who can drive to food distribution sites, Dickson said. Photo by Ashley Chong/NNSKim Meyer, who is holding a bag of apples, waits for a recipient to pull up their car to a stop with other volunteers and staff, who are also holding other food items. Photo by Ashley Chong/NNSVolunteer David Dzickowski-Cygan carries three boxes of eggs to be put at the back of a recipient’s car at the food distribution site. Dzickowski-Cygan got to know about the food bank’s volunteering program through his partner, Arielle Eschbaugh, who is the warehouse distribution center coordinator. Dzickowski-Cygan said he sees people from all walks of life receive food. He recalled once a woman with a nice car came to a food distribution site. He later found out that the woman just got out of a domestic abuse relationship and was kicked out of her house with no place to stay. “It’s sobering to see how many people need help, and a little scary sometimes,” Dzickowski-Cygan said. Photo by Ashley Chong/NNSCiara Dickson, distribution center assistant (left), and volunteer Kim Meyer waves to a recipient after putting food in their car trunk. Photo by Ashley Chong/NNSDarlene Tyson of Lincoln was one of the recipients at the food distribution site. She goes to a drive-thru food distribution site once every other week. “It saves me money,” Tyson said. She said that the food bank gives her a lot of food, so it helps during the winter. Photo by Ashley Chong/NNS Son Mai was one of the recipients at the food distribution site. Mai came from Vietnam to Lincoln in 1990. He started using the food bank’s services a month ago when he lost his job. A staff member from the Asian Community and Cultural Center told Mai about the food bank’s services. Photo by Ashley Chong/NNSJohnny Meyers of Lincoln was one of the recipients at the food distribution site. “My family just recently had a fire, and we’re living in a motel,” Meyers said. This is Meyer’s first time at the Food Bank of Lincoln’s drive-thru food distribution. Meyers explained food distribution services help his family of four get by to the end of every month. Photo by Ashley Chong/NNSRecipients wait in their cars near the entrance of the Star City Shores parking lot to receive food from the Food Bank of Lincoln. Photo by Ashley Chong/NNS
