Truck donation answers food bank's prayer

The idea sounded impossible at first, but thanks to the efforts of Cape Girardeau's First Presbyterian Church, a generous church member and her understanding husband, the Southeast Missouri Food Bank has added a refrigerator truck to its fleet of vehicles.

A ceremony to dedicate the truck took place Friday afternoon next to the church at the corner of Lorimier Street and Broadway.

Church treasurer and former co-chair of the church's mission committee Charlie Wiles said the idea was hatched about two years ago.

"We were in a mission committee meeting here at our church, and we had Karen Green, the former executive director of the food bank, at our meeting," Wiles said. The church had recently worked with the food bank to sponsor some mobile food deliveries and asked Green if there were any other ways church members could help.

Green, who has since retired, told the committee the food bank was in need of a refrigerator truck.

"We had about eight or 10 thousand dollars in our budget that year to do something, and we asked her 'How much would that cost?' and she said '$150,000,'" Wiles recalled.

"We all laughed and said 'Well, it won't be us doing that this year,' but (church member) Willie Bahn's wife, Dr. Janna Tuck, was at the meeting serving as co-chair and said 'Well what if you got the truck for free?' and the laughter changed to a serious conversation," Wiles said.

Tuck said her husband had an unused truck on their farm north of Cape Girardeau near Trail of Tears State Park.

"Willie had been using the truck in a former business of his, but it was just sitting on his farm. We went out and looked at it, and things developed from there," Wiles said. "I like to say I was at a meeting where Willie Bahn's wife gave his truck away."

The truck was a 15-year-old Mack with about 180,000 miles on the odometer. TAG Truck Center in Sikeston, Missouri, worked with the church and food bank to refurbish it. The truck center donated a 26-foot refrigerated truck bed left over from a customer who needed a truck but not the box that came with it.

"I'm very happy my truck could go to good use," said Bahn, a retired U.S. Air Force officer who pilots corporate aircraft for Drury Southwest.

"I have many projects I've thought about using it for, but my wife realized I would probably not get to many of them and thought this was a good thing to do," he said, adding with a laugh, "It was kind of out of my hands at that point."

For their part, the food bank had about $15,000 of mechanical work done on the truck, including installation of a lift gate. The truck was added to the food bank's fleet a couple of weeks ago.

First Presbyterian pastor Ellen Gurnon came to the church in December 2017 after the project was already underway.

"I'm grateful to be part of a congregation that cares about people, and especially wants to feed the hungry," she said.

Founded in 1985 and headquartered in Sikeston, the Southeast Missouri Food Bank acquires and provides nearly 12 million pounds of food a year to 140 food pantries, soup kitchens and domestic violence and homeless shelters in a 16-county service area. It partners with churches and other organizations to provide "truck-to-table" mobile food pantries and partners with schools to provide weekend backpacks of food to students in food-insecure families.

"Our trucks log a lot of miles and carry a lot of food," said Lisa Church, chief advancement officer with the food bank. "We're incredibly appreciative of this project and how its turned out."

To learn more about the food bank, visit semofoodbank.org.

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