MIDDLETOWN, Ohio — On a bright May afternoon, Joya Wells put on a set of gloves, an apron and a smile to see dozens of faces she’d missed over the past several months.
It was the debut of the Dream Center’s new food truck, a $75,000 purchase the center had dreamed of making for years until a December water main break made the mobile kitchen more of a want than a need.
When the Dream Center was running at full-service last year, Wells said the Feed the Hungry Project was providing 2,000 free meals, but after a water main ruptured above the second floor everything inside from the offices, to the after-school recreation space, to the kitchen was suddenly unusable.
Wells serves clients out of the new food truck. (Spectrum News 1/Michelle Alfini)
“Water was just flowing out (of) the building and the fire department had to turn it off at the main,” she said. “It did probably almost $250-300,000 worth of damage.”
The Dream Center had to find a new home for its after-school program and senior services, but with nowhere to prepare food, the Feed the Hungry Program was on hiatus.
Wells said the center offered canned goods and pantry items while waiting for a solution, but that didn’t come anywhere close to having the same impact.
“We are not a food pantry, so we really want to stick to our job, which is feeding hot meals, breakfast and dinner,” she said.
In the meantime, Wells said she and director, Deborah Patterson, had been dreaming of adding a food truck for a long time, but the funding and timing weren’t there. Now, funding that food truck seemed far more urgent.
The Dream Center started fundraising and in a matter of months, Wells said they had the $75,000 they needed to get the former Sara Lee Bakery truck and convert it into a mobile kitchen.
“The city of Middletown really showed out,” she said. “They supported us, businesses supported us local organizations, members of the community, members of the church community, so they really showed up.”
Patterson said the truck is fully equipped and can serve as a mobile kitchen. (Spectrum News 1/Michelle Alfini)
The truck is now operating every weekday, serving breakfast and dinner outside the Dream Center, but Wells hopes even when the kitchen is back up and running inside, the food truck will continue to make an impact.
“With this food truck we can go north, south, east, or west and feed areas,” she said.
She’s specifically looking at opportunities to serve some of the senior apartment buildings further away from the Dream Center to expand their impact.
In the meantime, though, Patterson said the immediate focus is letting folks in Middletown know the Feed the Hungry Project is back.
“We need to get our numbers back up,” she said. “We were at like 80-70 a day, but we’re at 30-35 now and new people are trickling in everyday.”
