Fueling up: Mobile pantry helps feed hundreds

Nearly 250 families stood in line Wednesday at Shields Park in Seymour waiting for the monthly mobile food pantry to arrive.

Despite concerns about the future of the program, those who stood in line and others who may benefit from the mobile food pantry should not have any fears about its future.

“We are going to continue,” said Deb Bedwell, director of Anchor House, which sponsors the mobile food pantry.

“There is no end in sight until Gleaners says they can’t do it anymore,” she said.

Bedwell said she talked with some people in line who were concerned about the program’s future.

She said because other mobile food pantries have become less frequent or disappeared, rumors have been circulating that Gleaners Mobile Food Pantry truck would stop coming to Shields Park.

“We are here every third Wednesday of the month,” she said. “We’re not stopping.”

Anchor House began hosting the mobile pantry in June 2011 and canceled the truck only once this July due to the high heat index. Bedwell said people regularly begin lining up at 10 a.m. even though the truck doesn’t arrive until 3 p.m. and doesn’t begin serving until 4 p.m.

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