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Fundraiser for non-profit food truck

The Daily Bread Food Truck's engine caught fire last month. The truck feeds hungry families in Amherst.

EGGERTSVILLE, NY-- The community is coming together to help the owners of a local food truck, which caught fire. This one is a bit different than the ones you normally see over at Larkin Square because it's dedicated to feeding low-income families.

"I miss our little old truck, but I know there's bigger and better things coming," said Steve Biegner.

There's a stack of supplies in the kitchen at St. Paul's Luthern Church in Eggertsville that's ready to be restocked into the Daily Bread Food Truck.

"It was a 1976 Ford utility truck, and God bless it, we held it together with prayer and duct tape," said Biegner.

The truck lasted three summers until it got sidelined last month during a meal delivery in Akron.

"Which maybe a little too far far for us to go. The engine got a little warmer than it should have, and when our chef started it back up, it started on fire," said Biegner.

Thankfully, no one was hurt. But now, Biegner is left waiting for the insurance company to decide whether the truck can return to the road. And while it might look like a normal food truck, it isn't.

"We're Buffalo's only non-profit food truck," Biegner said. "Every meal that someone buys, if it's a breakfast sandwich or chicken and biscuits or something like that, whatever they buy that pays for a meal for someone else over the winter."

Biegner is the pastor at Saint Paul's. He is also the director of the WNY Impact Foundation.

"You get to actually hand somebody a meal, and say we're thinking of you, we're praying for you, we love you. We're in this for you," he said.

Biegner and his team of volunteers sell food from May to October and from December until the end of April feed families from the Windermere School in Amherst.

"We call it get one, give one. We actually get one, you give two because it provides a meal for one person for two meals for the weekend," he said.

They give away 2,200 meals a year and want to raise enough money for a truck that's capable of running year-round, so they can more than double that number.

"That's our goal to really do even more and interrupt the poverty cycle because if we can do that, the kids are coming to school on Monday and they'll be well-fed and nourished," said Biegner. "We all know that when we don't have food, we're grumpy. So, it'll just be a better world if we can do that.

There's a fundraiser Thursday at Saint Paul's and a GoFundMe page. Plus a couple has pledged to match up to $30,000.

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