Network Food Truck Coming to Four RISD Campuses Monthly in 2019–20

Through a new partnership with the Network of Community Ministries, many RISD students and their families will be able to put more food on the table.

The Richardson-based nonprofit recently took delivery of a new refrigerated truck that it plans to use to bring food to Liberty Junior High, Audelia Creek Elementary, Memorial Park Academy and Thurgood Marshall Elementary.

The Network will pick up donations of meat, produce, frozen foods and dry goods that would otherwise go unclaimed from selected retail partners and transport them to the campuses where students can shop in an atmosphere similar to a farmer’s market.

Network President and CEO Cindy Shafer said the nonprofit long sought a refrigerated truck to accomplish this type of mission.

“Without the tremendous support we received for this project, our new Mobile Pantry program would not be possible,” Shafer said, specifically thanking The Catholic Foundation, Richardson Rotary and 100 Women of Richardson.

“We are looking forward to growing our partnership with RISD schools to benefit student families in need, and also to expanding community support for this very worthwhile endeavor.”

The Network food truck will first come to Memorial Park Academy at 11 a.m. on Thursday Sept. 26 and then in the morning of every fourth Thursday after that.

The truck will go to Audelia Creek at 3 p.m. on the first Tuesday of each month beginning Oct. 1; Thurgood Marshall Elementary at 3:30 each second Thursday of the month starting Oct. 10; and Liberty Junior High on the third Thursday at 4 o’clock beginning Oct. 17.

The Network of Community Ministries also plans to coordinate with the PTA’s Clothes Closet to have the food truck stop by that location on the fifth Thursday of October, as well as the fifth Thursday in January and April 2020.