In Mishawaka last Wednesday, a tree fell on a power line, knocking out power to the Grape Road-Main Street corridor for much of the day. The affected businesses included the Target store but they didn’t let their food go to waste.
Target called the Food Bank of Northern Indiana and offered to donate some 50,000 pounds of food. The food bank then called Cultivate, the food rescue nonprofit that last year built a new cold storage facility on Prairie Avenue in South Bend.
Cultivate co-founder Jim Conklin says they didn’t have time to recruit volunteers so they rounded up about eight Cultivate employees and rushed to the store. Conklin says worked for four hours filling 70 skids, requiring about six truck loads.
“It was 5 to 9:30 that we did it but it was just kind of fun to see if you can rescue that amount of food," Conklin says.
And he says with the federal government shutdown pausing SNAP benefits, the timing is ideal.
“It’s great, given all the things going on with SNAP right now. This is an unexpected, very significant donation of food. There’s a lot of food in a grocery store so I have a strong feeling this is going to serve a lot of community members here over the next couple of weeks.”
Cultivate has invited the pantries they help supply to come pick up some of the food Wednesday.
