The PBJ Truck was established on 10/20/2019 when our family bought an antique ice cream truck to facilitate the distribution of free peanut butter jelly lunches to the Northeast quarter of Marion, Ohio right at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. Our little project quickly grew from a family project to an entire community working together to refurbish and stock the truck to serve entire sack lunches due to the immense need the pandemic created! Marion has many households which are not equipped to take advantage of the food pantries and community meals offered in addition to social services. Even sending children to free meal sites is challenging for some, and there are pride barriers and other factors that prevent families from accessing services. Our model was designed to fill that gap. Our model is to drive around blasting Buckwheat Boyz’ Peanut Butter Jelly Time song! When someone approaches one of our three trucks, we hand them a free lunch! We feed pedestrians, children playing, families who come out of homes/cars, homeless camps, and when we get rained out then we take our sandwiches to Be Ministries (a resource and warming center). We are currently serving around 600 meals weekly all over Marion!
Our sandwiches are all made by volunteers. They pick up peanut butter/jelly/baggy kits from us, and purchase 6 loaves of bread to make sandwiches for an evening’s run! Volunteers sign up through the links on our facebook page or website. Because the system is entirely no-contact, it’s convenient for our volunteers to fit time for our community into their lives. They do each step of the process as their own time allows, and so we benefit from volunteers who have time to donate outside of typical nonprofit business hours. We have some “regulars” who sign up often, including many individuals, nursing homes, hospital wings, cub scout troops, church groups, high school sports teams, high school special education classrooms, and ladies’ groups. We also sign paperwork for those doing community service through our sandwich-making program. We love to hear stories about how families use this opportunity to teach their children about volunteerism.
Please review the available slots below and click on the button to sign up to make 60ish sandwiches. You can come to our headquarters at 503 Ballentine Ave at any time convenient for you to pick up your supply kit. Then, on your selected day, buy/donate 6 loaves of bread and assemble your sandwiches. Return them in the kit by 3:30PM. Thank you for donating the bread and these few hours of your time! A video with more details can be found at this address: https://fb.watch/dCgc3Wh7Oa/.
