By Isabel Gardocki
If you’ve spotted a 40-foot, sky blue truck parked in the street with a line of people patiently waiting to receive a fresh hot meal — that’s the Angelmobile at work, a mobile soup kitchen vehicle launched by North Brooklyn Angels (NBA) in June 2017. In the almost two years since, not only have volunteers prepped and cooked up to 1,000 healthy meals a week (that’s almost 65,000 meals!), but the non-profit is also leading the way with creative upcycling supported by local farmers at McCarren Park Greenmarket Saturday.
Every Saturday from late June to early November (until frost diminishes the availability of excess local produce), the Angels collect seasonal fruits and vegetables donated by local farmers participating in the Greenmarket. Then, “it’s a labor intensive job to trim and remove soil from the over 500 pounds of donated material,” explains Felice Kirby, Executive Director of NBA. “We turn about 300 pounds into fresh healthy vegetable dishes or add-ins to the rest of our daily meal for 200 people.”
Most importantly, nothing donated gets wasted — the produce that isn’t directly cycled into the Angels’ weekly meals gets sorted into individual bunches, such as one pound of beets, and is available at a table set up near the Angelmobile for meal guests to take home. Any unused portions of the food cooked gets composted, which amounts to approximately 9 bins of food waste weekly.
“Our lines of well over 100 people per daily meal at each site location are full of smiles and head nodding as our volunteers call out the names of the daily produce or place some fresh greens into a container for home cooks,” says Kirby. “It’s not unusual for enthusiastic guests to stop to tell one of us how they traditionally cook the fresh produce, or to ask the name and use for more unusual items, such as the kohlrabi and herbs popular among the various cultures which make up our North Brooklyn neighborhoods.”
North Brooklyn Angels is currently looking for volunteers to help with meal preparation, Saturday donation collection, and composting. The secret sauce is volunteers! For more information, visit the NBA website.