(PASSAIC, NJ) -- A food truck parked outside Mt. Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church in Passaic on Saturday morning, but this wasn’t any ordinary food truck service. Hungry customers walked away from the food truck with full plates of breakfast food and it was all for free! 

United Passaic Organization enlisted fellow community action agency United Community Corporation of Newark to bring its UCC Cafe Mobile Feeding Program to Passaic. Under the watch and instruction of UPO, the UCC Cafe provided fifty hot breakfast meals of pre-made eggs, potatoes, turkey sausage, and bialys, and gave out 100 bags of groceries to the community. 

If you missed out on the opportunity to benefit from this service, don’t worry, the UCC Cafe will be back at Mt. Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church every Saturday to distribute hot meals and groceries thanks to the support of the United Passaic Organization. 

“A food truck is a food truck. Nobody would ever know that someone is receiving a free meal for free,” UPO Executive Director Dr. Janelle C. Hall said. “Nobody would ever apply a stigma to them because they are standing at a regular food truck that sustains their dignity and integrity regardless of their need.”

Saturday’s event served 400 people and UPO’s reimagined full-service food pantry, which cut its ribbon on May 24 at Mt. Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church has helped 700 people. The fully-operational food pantry features groceries available to the community and the UJAMAA Mobile Cafe Community Refrigerator, which is stocked with healthy forward restaurant-quality comfort food thanks to the Coalition for Food and Health Equity. The pantry is operational every Tuesday and Friday from 9:30am - 2:30pm.

“I was not expecting everything to come together so quickly,” Hall said. “However, I’m ecstatic. This is amazing and something that the community needed. Now is the time to strike to reassure the residents of Passaic that UPO is here to sojourn with them and their needs during this time of food inflation. We are here to provide a hand-up and not a hand-down.”

UPO’s next hand-up to the community will complete its extensive suite of services as it wages war on food insecurity in Passaic County. Beginning on Friday, June 24, UPO will begin hosting nutritional and healthy cooking classes at Mt. Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church. Classes will vary in topics but will nearly always come back to the common theme of eating nutritionally on a budget. The classes will also address health needs such as controlling cholesterol, diabetes, and other generational food-related diseases. 

The first class will teach its attendees how to make ice cream. Due to limited capacity, it is recommended that clients register for nutritional classes by calling: (973) 472-2478.

“It’s summer so the ice cream workshop is perfect to be an ice breaker to the fourth component of this imagined food pantry suite,” Hall said. “This pretty much seals that suite of services that we’re providing to the community as we try to reimagine the food pantry narrative. I’m so excited that this all came together.”

Photos courtesy of United Passaic Organization