Our Lady's Pantry gets a new truck.

Thanks to a generous grant from the Interfaith Council a dozen years ago, Our Lady’s Pantry was able to purchase our first truck in which to collect food for our neighbors in need.  That truck has served us well and enabled us to more than triple the amount of food we had to share at that time.

Over the years, however, more and more of our donations have been fresh and frozen foods, in contrast to mostly non-perishables we received in the past.  Both the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Feeding Tampa Bay now require that any fresh and frozen foods transported from one place to another be refrigerated during their time in the truck. 

“Regrettably, our little box truck is not refrigerated and the single refrigerated truck we already have has long been insufficient to meet our needs,” says director Tom Bullaro.  

“Finally, this week, using the trade-in dollars from our old truck, we put a down payment on a newer model (2015) used refrigerator truck valued at about $30,000, and took out a loan for the balance.  Because every penny of the money donated for food is used only for food, we plan to pay back the loan with money from grants.  But this means we need more grant writers to help us pay off our truck.

“Can you help?” he asks.

Because most grant applications simply ask questions, experience writing grants is unnecessary.  For the most part, writers are required only to answer a question that has been asked.  Those of us who already write grants will be pleased to share all the current information you may need to provide these answers and complete the application.   

“If you are willing to write a grant, please let me know,” says Bullaro.

“And thanks so much.”