Foodshare to Operate Emergency Food Drive at Rentschler Three Days Per Week

Foodshare has been running an emergency drive-thru food distribution at Rentschler Field five days a week for months to help families in need of help amid the COVID-10 pandemic and it will be changing the schedule to three times a week.

“Starting in September we will be distributing food at Rentschler Field on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Over the next few weeks we will continue to educate our community on the resources available to them throughout Greater Hartford to access free food,” Jason Jakubowski, president and CEO of Foodshare said in a statement.

Foodshare officials said they have served more than 135,000 households over the past four months through the drive-thru food distribution.

According to a recent survey by Foodshare’s Institute for Hunger Research & Solutions, more than 80 percent of those visiting the East Hartford site said they were willing to go to other sites to get food, but most were unaware of existing programs.

Foodshare said it has more than 60 Mobile Foodshare sites throughout Hartford and Tolland counties and a community network of nearly 200 pantries and meal programs.

“We remain grateful to Governor Lamont, Lieutenant Governor Bysiewicz for allowing us to continue to use Rentschler Field,” Jakubowski said in a statement. "In particular, we also want to thank Mike Freimuth and the Capital Region Development Authority for all of their support over these past few months. Distributing food is certainly not the intended use of the Rentschler complex, but the CRDA has been incredibly understanding of our critical work at this very difficult time."