One Lord’s Diner truck goes mobile

Paul Cater hands out two meals from one of The Lord’s Diner’s food trucks in Our Lady of Perpetual Help’s parking lot Monday evening, Sept. 21. The truck will serve meals there from 5:15 to 6:15 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The truck starts serving at 4 o’clock at the Wichita Evergreen neighborhood location and then leaves at 5 p.m. for Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Cater is operations manager for the Diner. (Advance photos)

Now making two stops in north Wichita three days a week

One of The Lord’s Diner’s trucks has added a venue to serve the hungry. It’s not Meals on Wheels, but it is meals on wheels.

Jan Haberly, executive director of the diocesan ministry, said the Diner first began mobile service for the neighborhood at 25th Street and Arkansas in Wichita in May of 2011.

The serving crew for The Lord’s Diner’s first stop at Our Lady of Perptual Help was, from left, Mary Ann and Ron Youngers, and Denise Glenn.

“When we understood that adding a food truck to our ministry to feed the hungry would allow us to serve more people, we began researching areas of need,” she said last week. “The staff at the Evergreen Recreation Center was gracious enough to welcome us there.”

The City of Wichita agreed to allow the Diner to serve from that location, which is close to Cloud Elementary School, from 4 to 6 p.m. nightly.

“That location not only allows us to benefit the neighborhood but also kids and their families as they leave school,” Haberly said. “We thought at that time that we might eventually try to serve at more than one location in that part of town.”

 

That time came on Sept. 21, she added.

To add a second location in the area, the truck that serves the Evergreen neighborhood has shortened its serving window from two hours to one hour, from 4 to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, the truck will move to Our Lady of Perpetual Help’s parking lot, about a mile away, and serve that neighborhood from 5:15 to 6:15 p.m.

Tuesdays and Thursdays may be added to the stop at Our Lady of Perpetual Help if needed, Haberly said.