United Way of Southeast Iowa receives grant to help address food insecurity

BURLINGTON, Iowa (KWQC) – United Way of Southeast Iowa has announced they were awarded a grant that could help address food insecurity in Burlington and 19 other communities they cover.

The grant is called The Ride United Last-Mile Delivery Grant. a little over 8500 dollars will be used to help address this challenge by providing better transportation. According to Megan Brincks, Executive Director of United Way of Southeast Iowa, Des Moines County is one of the most food insecure counties in the state.

According to the United Way staff, the grant will provide a little over $8,500 to be used to provide better transportation by using a delivery service.

“This grant allows DoorDash drivers, which we do have an abundance of in our community, work with the local food pantries and ourselves to make deliveries of those food items along with a variety of other things to to families who maybe couldn’t get there because of transportation needs couldn’t get there because of timing. Or maybe they only have free time on the weekends,” said Brincks.

Brincks says one role United Way plays within the program is being support between those in need and the participating organizations by getting orders placed within the delivery system.

“We got enough money to cover 1,500 deliveries in the first year, we can, we can exceed that we can go more than 1,500, we would get a reduced rate from DoorDash to cover the cost of each delivery. So my hope is that if this goes well, we’ll have 3,000 or 4,000, deliveries 1,500, this grant will cover but we’ll be able to prove the concept,” said Brincks.

She says other positives about the program are the flexible delivery hours and the low barriers that allow access to the program.

“It’s really simple. We really just need a name, a phone number, and an email address, or one of those two, and an address,” said Brincks.

Brincks, says her organization was the only one in Iowa and one of only 37 in the United States to receive the grant. She says because they are such a small organization, its important that they make the most of the opportunity.

“We have to really pull ourselves up by our bootstraps every single day, grassroots out our fundraising, and really rely on on the small towns that we serve. And so it’s one of those things that opportunities like this don’t really happen to a lot of United Way’s like us. And so for us to actually have this opportunity, it’s going to be life-changing,” said Brincks

United Way of South East Iowa says they are planning to start deliveries for the program on July 1. Anyone who is interested in learning more about the program can call United Way of Southeast Iowa or stop by their office in Burlington during business hours.

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