“Your ‘Farm Eats’ order has arrived!” the volunteer exclaimed after a few knocks on an apartment door in Kansas City, Kan.

The door opened to an excited little boy perched on his mom’s hip, albeit slightly confused as to who these new visitors were. The paper grocery bag was handed off – a kit containing lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, rice, beans, ground beef, tortillas and other essentials for a taco meal. 

“Enjoy your Taco Tuesday, courtesy of Wyandotte County Farm Bureau!”

After exchanging “thank yous” and some laughs, the volunteer was off to deliver another Farm Eats meal kit.

From Uber Eats to Farm Eats

The idea of Wyandotte County Farm Bureau’s “Farm Eats” program was spurred by mimicking Uber Eats, a service where people can order from area restaurants and have their meals delivered straight to their location. With Farm Eats, recipients were given fresh local food items to prepare a taco meal.

Wyandotte County has a high urban population, and when the county’s Farm Bureau board thought of this idea, they knew the impact they could have on the community. Gina Montalbano, who owns Z&M Twisted Vines Winery and Vineyard in Lawrence, serves on the Wyandotte County Farm Bureau board of directors and was an integral part of making Farm Eats happen.

“The board was trying to come up with some new and innovative ways to attract and help people understand how important farmers are,” Montalbano says. “We thought about how we can serve in our community and showcase how proud we are of the agriculture in our state. We took the Uber Eats idea and ran with it.”

Making the right connections

The Farm Bureau board discussed providing the Farm Eats meal kits to families who needed it the most and connected with Chenaye Sutton, who is the family self-sufficiency coordinator for the Kansas City, Kansas Housing Authority. She works one-on-one with residents to help them move toward self-sufficiency through workshops and programs designed to help them make better lives for themselves.

The residents Sutton works with are public housing residents and Section 8 voucher holders, meaning they are families with low income, or are seniors or people with disabilities. The program is funded through the federal government and allows participants to earn escrow savings while working on their goals to meet the program requirements.

“When the leaders at Wyandotte County Farm Bureau started talking to me about the project, I immediately started thinking about some of the families I work with who have little to no income,” Sutton says. “I thought it was a neat opportunity and something we’ve never done before. When organizations come together to do something good, it’s a blessing.”

“Chenaye was the perfect connection for us,” Montalbano says. “She worked with property managers to determine a list of 50 recipients who needed extra resources and would appreciate a nice home-cooked meal.”

With the perfect connection made at the Housing Authority, the Farm Bureau board also partnered with Skip Dobbs, a local Farm Bureau Financial Services senior account executive, on the kits.

“I was raised by parents who were always helping other people,” Dobbs says. “My dad owned an auto body repair shop in Mississippi where I’m originally from and I remember one customer not being able to pay the full amount he owed. My dad started asking him more questions about how his kids were doing and learned they needed new clothes. My dad gave this man back all but just $20 so he could buy his kids clothes for the new school year. My mother was just as caring and giving. Being raised by such great role models makes it easy for my wife and me to do things to help our community.”

Wyandotte County Farm Bureau applied for matching grant dollars from Kansas Farm Bureau’s End Hunger fund to help defray some of the costs of food items.

“We were able to purchase the food we donated with the extra help from the End Hunger grant,” Montalbano says. “The project was about supporting these families with a meal, but we also wanted to show our support for the farmers and ranchers who supplied the food items by purchasing everything instead of expecting donations.”

The best Taco Tuesday

Montalbano used her Z&M winery-branded bus to drive the prepared Farm Eats kits to the parking lot of a Housing Authority property site for families where Sutton helped determine the best route of handing the bags out.

“It was so fun taking the bus and having it on site as a fun way for the residents to connect to farms,” Montalbano says. “It was also meaningful to hear one story from a mom who didn’t know what she was going to have for her daughter’s birthday dinner. We provided this mom and her daughter a celebration taco dinner – and that is worth everything.”

Montalbano is a former elementary principal, and it shows in the way she communicates and connects with the kids who stop by the parking lot. She’s engaging, speaks their language and isn’t a stranger to anyone. When interested kids visited the bus, Montalbano picked up an ear of corn and encouraged them to take it home.

“Just leave it in the husk and heat it up in the microwave for two minutes,” she says. “But look at me – it will be hot, so be careful, but it’s delicious with some butter.”

The meal kit bags also included additional easy recipes, a QR code that links to American Farm Bureau Federation’s My American Farm website, where kids can play fun games and learn about agriculture, as well as a Kansas Farm Bureau “Our Land, Our Lives” book containing photos and stories about farming and ranching. 

Some residents picked up their Farm Eats taco kits from the parking lot the bus was in, but others had their meals delivered straight to their home, just like Uber Eats. The difference, though, is the Farm Eats program was delivered by people with kind hearts trying to better their community – all while building connections to agriculture.

Learn more about Kansas Farm Bureau’s End Hunger program here. Connect with Wyandotte County Farm Bureau on their Facebook page.

 

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