In the parking lot at Newton Early Childhood Program, the food truck Red’s Street Kitchen set up camp on a recent Wednesday, cooking up a “win-win-win” situation for the small business, the community, and the parent teacher organization.
The initiative was through Food Truck Ventures’ “StrEATs for Schools” program which matches food trucks with PTOs in Newton and elsewhere to raise money for schools.
“Instead of wrapping paper, now [families] get a meal and an opportunity to help their PTO,” said Anne-Marie Aigner, founder of Food Truck Ventures. “Frankly, it’s a win-win-win-win.”
Aigner said she created Food Truck Ventures within a week of selling her previous festival-based business after the pandemic hit to try to help food trucks survive.
“I moved my desk into my home and created an office, and we pivoted,” she said. “My main goal in the beginning, to be really honest, was to try to save some food trucks.”
Aigner said many food trucks around the country are now off the road and “won’t be back.”
School PTOs — which typically raise money to enhance school experience — also have faced difficulty fundraising without events.
“You’re helping a small business and you’re helping your school,” Aigner said. “Is there anything simpler and more understandable than that?”
Three PTOs in Newton are currently involved in the program, Aigner said, with two more in discussion. The program began in October and has been running “pretty extensively” since January, she said, with 12 PTOs across five Massachusetts towns including Newton. At least 20 trucks are involved in the StrEATs programs now, she said.
Amye Kurson-Collins, who is co-running the Newton Early Childhood Elementary Program PTO, said she hopes the event also will boost school spirit.
“A lot of these food trucks are actually local people, and it really helps them,” she said. “It’s so easy to do.”
Kurson-Collins said the money raised recently will help meet the school’s request for “extra wipes and cleansers,” among other supplies, as well as enrichment activities.
The StrEATs for School program is a recurring event for the PTO with a different truck every few weeks, she said. Each event raises from about $100 to $200.
“Nothing like crazy,” she said. “But it all helps.”
Max Reeves, owner of Red’s Street Kitchen, served the meals with two other employees. Despite a flat tire on the way and the about 60-mile trek from the restaurant in Seekonk, morale in the group was high. Today, they were cooking.
Reeves said the truck lost about half of its employees due to the pandemic. The truck’s sales reached only a third of 2019′s profits, and their usual line-up of festivals, weddings and even movie sets vanished, he said.
“Every event that we had, every brewery that we had, everything, just within two weeks, canceled,” he said. “It was pretty scary.”
Now, boasting famous menu items like the “Blue Zombie” sandwich and cheese steaks, the truck will travel greater distances to meet the people who once flocked to them, becoming a fixture at fundraisers and farmer’s markets.
“I’m willing to go a lot farther than I would be for the same amount of money,” he said. “It just is what it is.”
Reeves said a program like StrEATs for Schools “brings together the community.” He said it also helps create reach at a time when small businesses like his, which just expanded to a brick and mortar restaurant in Seekonk, have never needed it more.
“Anybody that can get out there and help these small businesses, it’s good for the community, and I think it’s helping a lot of people,” he said
Horace Mann and Burr Elementary Schools hosted their first StrEAT for Schools events March 12 — both sold out and raised over $200 for each school.
Elisabeth Zimmer, co-president of the Horace Mann PTO, said she is “sort of obsessed” with the food trucks. On a recent Friday, Montilio’s wood fired pizzas and mouth-watering rum cakes visited the school.
“It’s always a fun event to get a treat from a food truck,” she said. “It always adds a little pizazz to just getting a pizza.”
Zimmer said the event’s profits will go to the Capture Carbon Commemorate COVID-19 or 4C Tree Project — a project headed by the Green Newton Youth Leadership Program that plans to plant trees to honor city residents lost to COVID-19. Horace Mann will be one of the sites, she said.
“Trees will beautify the school and it’s really nice to be able to commemorate people we’ve lost to COVID-19,” she said. “Add a little more kindness in the world.”
Alyssa Haggerty, PTO communications coordinator at Burr Elementary, said fundraising this year has “definitely been difficult”and food trucks seemed like a “really fun idea.”
“We’re hoping to see some friends in line that we don’t typically get to see as much anymore and reconnect with the community, " she said.
In the future, Aigner said, she would love to morph StrEATs for Schools into “StrEATs for Good,” inviting any nonprofit to enlist food trucks for fundraising.
She said food trucks “couldn’t be more of a small business,” and hopes communities continue to embrace them.
“The food truck landscape will be considerably different than it used to be, it has to be,” she said. “But I think now that it’s March, and the weather’s looking good, we’re starting to hear from more and more trucks.”
Lily Kepner can be reached at newtonreport@globe.com.
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