Tukwila Pantry’s delivery truck is over 15 years old and has traveled almost 600,000 miles gathering food for our community. . . but it doesn’t have many more miles left in its life of service and is one breakdown away from the junkyard. This is a real concern that will have a devastating effect on the many families that rely on the pantry to provide the much needed food and supplies during these difficult times.
The Tukwila Pantry reached out to us expressing these concerns and our board was moved by their determination to continue helping our community despite the uncertainty luring ahead. We are excited to announce that we have joined forces with the Tukwila Pantry to help them raise the money needed to purchase a new truck! We kicked off the campaign by providing them a $5,000 grant and would like to invite you to join the campaign. So let's help the Tukwila Pantry Get-A-Truck!
The truck that the Pantry currently uses is a 2004 Ford International 4000 series box truck with over 575,000 registered miles. For most of 2020, the truck sat on the side of the Pantry, broken and unusable. The refrigeration unit recently broke down, limiting our reach for many products to within 30 minutes of the pantry. Repairs for many of the issues would be extremely expensive, making it more practical to purchase a newer truck.
Over the past 15 years, the truck has delivered nearly 1 million pounds of food to the Pantry, serving not only the Tukwila community, but also our neighbors living in SeaTac, Burien, and Boulevard Park. The truck has made it possible to serve ~4,600 individuals over the last year, and that number is expected to be even higher this year as the Pantry is at the forefront of helping our community during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, given its condition, there is a real possibility that their support will stop if they can't secure a reliable method of transportation.
Our goal is to raise $15k for the new truck by the end of May 2020. Some generous donors have already stepped forward to contribute toward our new truck, but we still need to raise enough matching funds to actually make the purchase, and we are hoping you will help us get there. That’s why we’re asking you to donate today to help Tukwila Pantry to “Get-a-Truck!”
We plan to buy a much newer truck thatwould be considerably less expensive to maintain and better suited tothe Pantry’s contemporary needs. No longer would our clients be threatened by the possibility that the truck wouldn't arrive one day.
