As inflation drives food prices higher, one of the largest food banks and distributors of donated food is seeing a greater need. The evidence, according to Brooke Neubauer, the founder, and CEO of The Just One Project at Rancho and Bonanza is the lines of cars that seem to grow each week, with new families arriving to pick up food and other necessities.
Neubauer says The Just One Project is the result of her deciding to volunteer once in 2014. “It felt so amazingly good that I was like, I never want this to stop. I want to keep on giving,” she said. Since then, she’s gone big with a large campus that includes a large parking lot for food pickup, warehouse space, a small grocery store where clients can shop for free in a more traditional venue, and space set aside for community outreach which allows counselors to make sure seniors are getting access to programs, health care, and in-home food delivery if needed.
“We are so incredibly lucky. We partner with Three Square,” Neubauer said, “other community partners. We have such a great mixture of say, MGM. They’re a really big supporter of The Just One Project. It's just a really wonderful mix of corporate partners, and also the public. We have the city of North Las Vegas, the city of Las Vegas, the county so everybody comes together to help us pull this off.”
As the need grows, so has Neubauer’s employed staff. Only two years ago, she says it stood at 7. Now, she employs 50 people who work with dozens of volunteers each day to battle food insecurity in the community.
“We're very nimble. And we also have a lot of arms in the community,” said Neubauer. “We have 44-plus mobile distributions every single month in every little pocket of town almost. We have seven delivery drivers on the road Monday through Friday going to access those disconnected, those homebound clients, which is huge.” Combined, Neubauer says The Just One Project currently serves 20,000 people a month.
“It means a lot,” said Jerry Smith, a The Just One Project client. “When you're on disability and month to month, you can hardly make ends meet,” he added. “Food prices are skyrocketing and, you know, when you're on a fixed income, everything helps, so this place is wonderful.”
Neubauer believes food insecurity is growing across the community as inflation takes larger bites out of food budgets in many local households. Her fear is it will lead to many families making unthinkable choices. “I feel like people now are just making more and more decisions of food or gas, food or rent,” she said. “You can't have your lights go out, but you can go hungry so that's the choice. They're gonna go without food.”
The Just One Project is always looking for donations and volunteers. For more information, as well as how to use its resources, visit its website.