Topeka North Outreach gives to families in need during Memorial weekend

A local organization spent their day giving food to those in need on Sunday.

Topeka North Outreach gathered on Sunday for their weekly meeting to distribute meals to those in need.

"Just hoping that, not only the food, but we can just let them know they're are people who care about them," Theresa Gartner, President of Topeka North Outreach said.

Since March 13th, Topeka North Outreach has provided food to families in North Topeka and in the Oakland neighborhood through their Operation Backpack program.

"Like about a two-day supply of individual size food items in the sack, it's got about 9 or 10 food items in it," Gartner explained. "People are just so appreciative, they just can't believe that someone cares enough to come out in their area and bring them food."

But, the coronavirus outbreak had made the food distribution difficult.

"It's been really hard to get quantities of food at this time, but right now we're having to fill these food snacks weekly," Gartner said. "We're not able to get that much, but we are giving away 1200 to 1300 little sacks of food every week."

Gartner says the generosity is needed now more than ever, "with this COVID stuff and everything that's going on, there's so many needy people that have lost their livelihood, they're not able to get unemployment."

"They're not able to work, kids are home so we are just sharing with anybody and everybody needing it," she said.

Theresa emphasizes that they will do whatever it takes to give to families who need it the most, "it is a village, it is a community project, because we have hundreds of volunteers."

"We're going into 20 sites. As the need got worse and worse, then as the donations and the funds came in more and more we were able to help more and more," she said.

The Topeka North Outreach COVID-19 outreach will end May 31st and the Summer outreach will start on June 5th.

To see the full schedule of the Operation Backpack program,