Food Podcast: Trinity School District handing out 20,000 meals weekly

Trinity School District in Washington County is serving 20,000 meals each week to children as part of their Grab ‘n Go meal program in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“Hunger doesn’t have an end, so we’re not going to discontinue services,” said Nicolle Pleil, the district’s food service director. “We are going to continue to serve, continue to be here for the families were serve throughout the summertime.”

Pleil was a special guest on this week’s Food Podcast presented by Clearview Federal Credit Union.

“Initially we struggled with logistics, we had cars that waited over an hour the first week. We had never done anything like this,” Pleil said. “The more we dove into this, the more resources we put together, we are able to say that truly there is very little waiting for meals at this time.”

During non-covid times, 1 in 5 children in the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank’s 11-county service area are food insecure.

Since the start of the organization’s response to the covid-19 crisis, food bank has provided more than 7 million pounds of food through various distribution channels.

“Our mission has always been to feed people in need,” said Brian Gulish, Food Podcast host and food bank vice president of communications. “Over the past 11 weeks we’ve completely reimagined how to do that in the safest and most efficient way.”

Since March 16, the food bank has hosted 25 drive-up food distributions and handed out more than 1.2 million pounds of food to 23,451 vehicles.

Listen: Trinity School District distributing 20,000 meals weekly