Creative Partnership Addresses Hunger in Dakota County School Districts
With the Mobile Lunchbox, The Open Door Pantry partners with Dakota County school districts to help deliver meals to areas of severe need in the county five days a week. On Fridays, the Mobile Lunchbox also distributes snack packs to help nourish kids through the weekend.
The program began in 2013 with a single school bus retrofitted as a kid-friendly, mobile dining space and USDA-compliant meals provided by District 191 (Burnsville, Savage, Apple Valley). The bus visited neighborhoods of severe need in the district, serving 10-15 kids at a time, meeting the Summer Food Service Program congregate feeding requirements to qualify for federal reimbursement.
Today, The Open Door Pantry partners with 6 public school districts to distribute meals throughout the districts’ service areas. The retrofitted school bus has been retired, replaced by a fleet of 9 vans and a multitude of volunteers. In summer 2024, the Mobile Lunchbox served 32,802 lunches at 31 sites across all 6 districts.
“We’ve had amazing success,” said Nicole Tyrrell, Neighborhood Programs Manager at The Open Door. “We had our audits last year and the auditor said she had never seen a program with a consistent Monday through Friday presence like this anywhere in the country.”
A Hybrid Public-Private Approach
In 5 of the 6 districts, the Mobile Lunchbox operates under the Summer Food Service Program: the districts provide SFSP-compliant meals that volunteers take to playgrounds, apartment complexes or manufactured housing communities and serve in a congregate setting. There’s no formal programming for the kids – just the promise of a consistent meal.
The outlier district, District 194 (Lakeville Area Schools), doesn’t operate any of its kitchens in the summer, which pushed The Open Door to get creative to fill the summer hunger gap. The nonprofit turned to private donors, corporate partners, local businesses and fundraising to fund the purchase of meals distributed throughout that district.
Because Lakeville’s meals are privately funded, The Open Door doesn’t have to follow the SFSP meal pattern or serve meals in congregate settings. These differences help fuel higher participation – 250 meals are distributed in Lakeville each day. Kids simply pick up their meals from the designated site and go home to eat. They aren’t sitting on a curb or in a playground eating at a pre-determined time.
“I know we could feed more kids in the other districts if we didn’t have to do congregate eating,” Nicole said. “Of the nearly 33,000 lunches we distributed last year, 16,000 of those were in Lakeville alone. That’s because of the high need in the area and the lack of congregate eating requirements.”
A New Partner in CKC Good Food
After working with local restaurants and a caterer to supply meals in Lakeville, The Open Door partnered with CKC Good Food in 2025.
“The restaurants couldn’t sustain the volume and the caterer was really expensive,” Nicole said. “I was referred to CKC Good Food and couldn’t believe we hadn’t found them sooner. It was a natural fit!”
CKC Good Food provides meals that closely resemble those it provides to the company’s other clients operating under the Summer Food Service Program as The Open Door prioritizes providing nutritious food. The meals include fruits and vegetables, whole grains and a variety of tasty cold sandwiches, wraps, flatbreads and pasta salads.
“We have been getting GREAT feedback on the lunches, kids are really liking them!!” Nicole said.
Nicole hopes to expand the Mobile Lunchbox to the Hastings and Farmington school districts soon. Hastings would likely run its own program modeled after the Mobile Lunchbox whereas Farmington will likely operate like Lakeville.
Get Involved
The Open Door Pantry depends on volunteers to help keep the Mobile Lunch Box and all it’s programs running. Nearly 200 volunteers a week help with a range of tasks, from answering phones to stocking shelves and distributing food. If you are interested in volunteering with The Open Door you can learn more and fill out an application on their website!