INDIANAPOLIS — A local food pantry is teaming up with a restaurant to help feed more Hoosiers in need and they’re giving customers a chance to give back for a cause through a new “Giving Wall.”
Get a meal to give a meal, that’s the idea behind the new “Giving Wall” at the Grub House started this week.
The concept is simple. You can purchase a meal for yourself and purchase another for someone else in need.
You take your ticket, put it on the “Giving Wall” and then someone can come and grab it who needs it.
“It makes me happy that I can feed people and the people that need it,” said DeAndrea Rayner, the founder of the Indy Community Pantry.
Rayner partnered with the North side restaurant to launch the new program which is an expansion of her non-profit’s mission to ease the burden of buying food.
The pantry started in the pandemic, placing fridges filled with food outside in neighborhoods deemed as food deserts.
“You don’t have to be homeless to take the food, you can be a mom struggling to pay her bills,” said Rayner.
The fridge provides cold food to take home, while the new "Giving Wall" provides hot meals.
“Maybe you have an extra family member with you or it’s just a bad day or a day where you’re short, you can take a meal off the wall, and you’ll give it to you for free,” said the Grub House owner Latoya Williams.
The "Giving Wall" comes as some families struggle to feed their kids now on summer break and no longer getting meals at school.
“A lot of people come in and they buy adult meals and leave the kids out,” said Williams. “It’s just good to know you have somewhere to go and your child can eat.”
A hot meal that means so much for the customers giving back to those in the very community they live in.
“I think it’s good for the community, especially the black community because we really need stuff like this,” said customer Bryce Williams who purchased an extra meal.
“I want other restaurants to reach out as well. The goal is to have a whole wall of receipts," Williams said. +
The “Giving Wall” is expected to become a permanent program at The Grub House.
Rayner hopes to also get a grocery store that will pass out free food for the community.
Click here to learn more about the Indy Community Pantry.
