Food Bank's Mobile Eatery Feeds Hungry Oklahomans During Spring Break

Many students are trying to figure out what to do for Spring Break, but others are trying to figure out where they'll get their next meal.

While students are out of school, the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma is stepping in to make sure they're fed.

Throughout the year the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma's mobile eatery travels to feed the hungry.

This Spring Break week it's traveling to the Welcome Table Community Center in Turley to feed people like 9-year-old Kaylie Burnett.

"Yummy, yummy, yummy in my tummy," she said.

Food distribution events like this are held every time school is out, according to Brenda O'Brian with the Community Food Bank.

“During Spring Break, that's ten missed meals if they are getting breakfast and lunch at school, so it's really important for us to get out here," she said.

The food bank said, with nearly one-in-four children facing hunger every night, the push to get out there and help is more important than ever.

In the past two decades poverty in Oklahoma has nearly doubled, and while the services offered in the food truck won't solve the problem, it's a start.

Reverend Ron Robinson with the Third Place Community Foundation works in some of the most impoverished areas. He said the impact of having food is much bigger than just calming hunger pangs.

"Being able to study, being able to work, being able to get the job, everything kinda flows out of that feeling. Being able to not be experiencing hunger at the time, so when we're able to just focus on that one piece it tends to have a ripple effect," he said.

It's an important ripple effect that even the little ones see.

"They should do this to help people so people won't, so people can get food and they don't starve," Burnett said.

The mobile food truck will be at the Welcome Table Community Center for the rest of the week. Children under 18 will be fed first and left over food will go to the adults.