The Food Bank of Delaware is awarded a set of electric vehicles by Energize Delaware.
Energize Delaware approached the Food Bank with a grant opportunity, and the nonprofit applied and received four vehicles and accompanying charging stations.
"So we have four total power plugins for four cars. So there's two stations so we can use them, and they're also free to the public. So if a volunteer is coming to the Food Bank to help in our volunteer room and they have an electric vehicle, they can charge their car for free while they're here at the Food Bank," said Kim Turner, Food Bank of Delaware Vice President of Communications
The $300,000 investment by Energize Delaware helps the Food Bank replace its four aging gas-dependent vehicles.
The Food Bank also received a grant from DNREC to help pay for the charging stations with two each at the Food Bank’s Newark and Milford facilities.
Turner says this helps them provide more food services to the Delawareans.
"We don't have to use money that we would otherwise put towards food and other programming to cover the cost of our passenger vehicles,” said Turner. “In the past, we've had gas powered vehicles that were actually donated to the Food Bank, and they were getting over two hundred thousand miles on them, so they were getting to the point where they were very costly to repair."
Turner notes that every dollar they can save to put towards their hunger relief program is a win for them.
