RENO, Nev. (KOLO) – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints delivered a semitruck carrying approximately 40,000 pounds of food to the Food Bank of Northern Nevada on Thursday as part of the nationwide America 250 commemoration marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.<\/p>\n
The donation is part of the America Gives Initiative, through which the church is delivering 250 truckloads of food to 250 food banks across all 50 states. Each truckload contains enough food to feed approximately 1,400 people for a week.<\/p>\n
Food headed to rural Nevada communities<\/p>\n
A portion of Thursday\u2019s donation was sorted by volunteers and sent directly to rural pantries across the region, including New Frontier Food Pantry and Out of Egypt in Fallon, Living Faith in Fernley, and the Yerington Food Pantry, which serves Yerington and Silver Springs. The Food Bank of Northern Nevada will distribute the remainder through its network of partner agencies across northern Nevada.<\/p>\n
Jocelyn Lantrip, director of marketing and communications for the Food Bank of Northern Nevada, said the organization serves 150,000 people struggling to make ends meet across a 90,000-square-mile service area.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis particular donation is also being shipped right away to some of our rural communities \u2014 to Fallon, Fernley, Silver Springs, Yerington,\u201d Lantrip said. \u201cSo we\u2019re excited that food is going out to those rural partners right away.\u201d<\/p>\n
A significant partnership<\/p>\n
Lantrip said the food bank provided more than 23 million meals last year and described the truckload as a sizable donation. She said the church has been a long-standing partner of the food bank, contributing through volunteering, food donations, and monetary donations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been partnering with the church for many years,\u201d Lantrip said. \u201cIt\u2019s a significant partnership, and we value it very much.\u201d<\/p>\n
Volunteers recognized<\/p>\n
The event also included the presentation of two Heart of Service Awards \u2014 one honoring the Food Bank of Northern Nevada as an exemplary nonprofit organization, and one honoring a top volunteer selected by the Food Bank\u2019s Board of Directors.<\/p>\n
Bill Hoffman, a retired volunteer recognized at the event, said his greatest satisfaction comes from direct community distribution.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had, you know, like a lady with her child come up and say, \u2018Thank you so much. We couldn\u2019t make it without this,\u2019\u201d Hoffman said. \u201cSo I think that\u2019s where we really get a reward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Volunteer Janice Rock said the donation reflects the importance of community service.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of food insecurity right now,\u201d Rock said. \u201cAnd it just needs to be done. These people need the food.\u201d<\/p>\n
Broader initiative<\/p>\n
JustServe is partnering with America250 to support what organizers describe as an effort to make 2026 the largest year of service and volunteerism in U.S. history. FamilySearch is also participating in the America 250 celebration by inviting Americans to explore and record their family histories.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 KOLO. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
RENO, Nev. (KOLO) – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints delivered a semitruck carrying approximately 40,000 pounds of food to the Food Bank of Northern Nevada on Thursday as part of the nationwide America 250 commemoration marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The donation is part of the America Gives<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[34361,4870,4868,4866,4869,4867],"class_list":["post-42776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nevada","tag-food-bank-of-northern-nevada-donation-america-250-food-drive-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints-food-donation-sparks-nevada-food-bank-america-gives-initiative","tag-nevada","tag-nevada-dining","tag-nevada-food","tag-nevada-grocery-stores","tag-nevada-restaurants"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dc\/117384012341049692","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}