Students at Wendover High School spent Thursday packing 90 boxes of meat, fruit, vegetables and other groceries, kicking off a new statewide effort to get food to Utah communities that traditional assistance programs often miss. The boxes were headed to 90 families in Wendover, a town of about 1,130 people near the Nevada border, marking the first event of a community-based food security network built by a nonprofit and a state lawmaker.
The network was launched by Chicanos por la Causa, a community development nonprofit, alongside Utah Senate Minority Leader Luz Escamilla, a Democrat from Salt Lake City, according to Utah News Dispatch. Leo Gonzalez, program manager at Chicanos por la Causa, said food security ranks among Utahns’ top needs alongside housing and healthcare. “We’re feeding 90 different families here in Wendover,” Gonzalez said, as reported by Fox 13.
Organizers say the goal is far bigger than one border town. Gonzalez described plans to eventually take food to every single county in Utah, with early priorities including the west side of Salt Lake City and rural stretches of Tooele, Summit, Carbon and Sanpete counties, the same report notes. Wendover itself was chosen specifically because it represents the kind of community traditional food assistance programs can struggle to reach.
How the Network Sources Its Food
Rather than simply distributing surplus goods, the network’s model is built around buying directly from local producers and routing that food to families through trusted community organizations, according to a release from Utah Policy. Listed food providers include Utah Natural Meat, International Rescue Committee New Roots, OakDell Egg Farms and Utah Refugee Goats, with other organizations helping distribute the food once it reaches communities…