Independent Operators

Food truck catering operator aims to help those displaced by wildfires

Photo by istock.com

June 15, 2021

The Off the Grid food truck, which started as a truck and grew into a catering operation, is reaching out to local businesses in California in an effort to make sure residents displaced by wildfires this year have food to eat.

Ashleigh Bilodeaux, the truck's director of marketing, said the company is asking for local business support — from food trucks to restaurants — to create a fast response to help those when a wildfire hits in the Lake Tahoe area, according to a Tahoe Daily Tribune report.

"With the fires in 2017, we saw a huge cry for help to get food out to people who had been displaced by fire," Bilodeaux told the news outlet.

The 2017 response effort led to the creation of a Food Responders program that works with governmental agencies to create plans to help food-insecure residents after a natural disaster strikes.

Last year the program helped nearly 1 million people and provided more than $10 million to restaurants and food truck operators hit hard during the COVID-19.

Off the Grid wants to add more than 200 food responders to bring the response number to over 400.

"It;s locals supporting locals," Blilodeaux told the news outlet. "It truly takes a village to get through a disaster."