(WICHITA, Kan.)—
It serves meals to hundreds of people each night in Wichita, but soon the Lord's Diner will be able to take the service on the road. The charity just bought a food truck and plans to put it into action this spring to help people in need in North Wichita.The Lord's Diner plans to hand out to-go dinners at the Evergreen Recreation Center near 25th and Arkansas every Monday through Thursday. The truck will then go to a different location on Fridays and the weekends to reach even more people in need.
"This will probably take us to serving over 1000 meals a day," said Lord's Diner Director Jan Haberly.
The charity already serves nightly meals at two permanent locations in Downtown Wichita and the Planeview area. Thanks to the new food truck, volunteers can reach areas they haven't been able to before.
"Because of our donor base and the dedication of the Wichita community, we're able to look at ways to expand our mission and a few months ago we started looking at that," Haberly said.
"Our church does a lot of community outreach here and there is a great need," said North Wichita resident Margarita Acosta. "Especially for families in need of food."
Acosta is glad the Lord's Diner picked the Evergreen Rec Center as a base location. So does the City of Wichita, who sees this as a win-win situation.
"We have low cost programs there, we serve quite a few family units out of Evergreen," said Wichita Parks and Rec Director Doug Kupper. "Its a neighborhood city hall as well, so we thought it was a good partnership."
If the food truck proves to be successful, the Lord's Diner says it would look to buy more trucks in the future to expand service even further.
"It is new territory for us," Haberly said. "We are open to all kinds of ideas and ways to be successful."
It will take about six months to get the new truck ready for operation, so Haberly expects to start serving meals at Evergreen sometime in May.
The Lord's Diner started serving nightly meals downtown 10 years ago.
