New refrigeration truck for Council’s Meals on Wheels operations

Ever since the Osceola Council on Aging had to stop using its food pantry location in St. Cloud in October because of an environmental concern, its food distribution operations have been challenged.

Thanks in part to the City of St. Cloud, the Council has been able to put the pantry on wheels and get the food to those in need.

They are pretty cool wheels. That’s not a description of the look, but merely that it’s a refrigerated box truck, purchased with assistance from a $103,000 City of St. Cloud Community Development Block Grant.

The truck will now be able to let the Council’s food service offer more food that needs to be kept cool, or frozen. It will come each Thursday to the St. Cloud Civic Center, like last week, when a ceremonial ribbon cutting was held for the first week it was put into operation.

“I told the city this would enable us to offer frozen meals for our Meals on Wheels senior clients in the more rural areas like Holopaw,” Council on Aging President Wendy Ford said. “And a refrigerated truck will make distributions easier when it gets warmer later in the year.”

St. Cloud City Councilman Kolby Urban said helping purchase the truck made it possible for the Council to continue providing a critical service to residents.

“The St. Cloud Food Pantry has been serving our residents for more than 30 years. For much of that time, it ran as an independent, not-for-profit organization under the capable direction of Tammi Madison. Due to ongoing struggles to find enough volunteers to keep it operating in a post-COVID world, the Food Pantry’s Board voted in 2021 to close it.”

Ford said the food pantry distributed food to about 12,500 St. Cloud residents last year, for a total of more than one million pounds of food.

For more information or to apply to receive assistance, visit the Osceola Council on Aging’s food distribution site at https://osceolagenerations.org/ food-pantry-registration/