How a mobile kitchen and volunteers get hot meals to Rockland residents in need

SPRING VALLEY − The shiny blue and sparkly silver food truck sat, generator humming, prepping meals on a recent Thursday in the side lot of Memorial Park.

It was just the fourth trip for the new mobile kitchen operated by Helping Hands For the Homeless of Rockland, an interfaith volunteer organization that provides support for people who are homeless and food insecure.

Helping Hands has long participated in the Rockland Interfaith Breakfast Program that provides food from 7-8 a.m., Monday through Friday, at the Church of the Nazarene on Church Street in Spring Valley. About 160 meals are distributed daily: 80 hot breakfasts and 80 bagged lunches for visitors to take with them.

The mobile kitchen is an extension of that mission, a way to ensure hot, fresh meals are accessible to anyone who may need them.

"We don't turn anyone away," said Helping Hands Executive Director Anna Kobelka, between greeting people coming by to pick up food and taking her turn at the window fulfilling orders.

What the truck can do

Some 52 hot meals were served, for free, to any who came on a rainy Thursday when temperatures hovered in the 40s. Philly cheesesteaks were on the menu, with fries and onion rings and coleslaw or macaroni salad. A bottle of water is included in each to-go bag.

On Dec. 28, Michelangelo Giordano, a volunteer and Helping Hands board member, was at the grill.

The mobile kitchen, custom built for Helping Hands, includes refrigeration, an oven, a six-burner stovetop, griddle and fryer. Kobelka said they have added a rice cooker and instant pot.

The nonprofit first looked at renting a food truck, but found it more cost-effective to design its own, Kobelka said. Bill Baretz, board president of Helping Hands, worked with a vendor in Miami to build the kitchen to meet the organization's needs.

Going where needed

The truck, through the winter, parks at Memorial Park just behind the Church of the Nazarene. As the crew readied the Dec. 28 meal distribution, a woman came by asking if there were any socks available. Artie Ghaffri, a Helping Hands volunteer, was able to run up the back stairs to the church and grab some for her.

The Spring Valley site is also blocks from the village's transit station, which is a pick-up spot for the shuttle to the county's Warming Center at the Yeager Center in Pomona, operated by Catholic Charities Community Services of Rockland County.

"Spring Valley has the largest congregation of homeless and food insecure folks," Kobelka said. But need exists countywide, and as the weather warms, the mobile kitchen will be brought to more areas.

The truck has made four trips since it was road ready in late November. The mobile kitchen has been averaging one dinner distribution a week.

Kobelka envisions taking the truck out three times a week, to different locations, when spring comes. She said that the truck could go to Nyack on days that Soup Angels isn't providing meals at First Reformed Church downtown. She said two recent food pantry closures in Stony Point have created more need in north Rockland.

A legacy of help

The volunteer-run effort gets people what they need, Kobelka said, from warm clothes to a hot meal to connections with substance use treatment and other medical care.

Helping Hands also hosts portable showers at Memorial Park and other communities, but that's suspended in colder months.

Helping Hands purchases some of the food they use for their breakfast and mobile kitchen projects, and also accesses food from the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York and local distributions at Clover Stadium in Pomona and People to People in Nanuet.

Remembering Bert Hughes: Nyack musician helped homeless, fought hunger, championed affordable housing

While Baretz handled logistics for the mobile kitchen, the concept was a dream of Bert Hughes, an original organizer of Helping Hands of Rockland's Interfaith Breakfast Program, who died in August at age 79.

The organization collaborates with government, houses of worship, nonprofits and anyone else who can help people access support to address what are often complex needs. Volunteer opportunities are available: Go to rocklandhelpinghands.com to find out more

Nancy Cutler writes about People & Policy for lohud.com and the USA Today Network New York. Reach her at ncutler@lohud.com; follow her at @nancyrockland on X (formerly Twitter), Instagram and Threads.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Rockland homeless get meals after mobile kitchen created by volunteers