Visitors enjoy last year’s inaugural Shepherd’s Pantry Food Truck Festival in Moundsville. The lineup for this year’s festival includes The Gringos Taco Truck and Izzy’s Food Truck. (Photo Provided)
Back by popular demand from Moundsville residents, the Shepherd’s Pantry Second Annual Food Truck Festival will offer hungry attendees a variety of local cuisine, from tacos to barbecue.
The festival will be held today from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Simpson United Methodist Church parking lot, which will house the five food trucks in attendance.
“The festival has been requested to come back because when we did it last year, everybody was out there socializing and having a good time,” Shepherd’s Pantry Board President James Barlip said. “The City Manager (Rick Healy) said it was a great event because it brought people together, so I figured, why not keep doing it?”
The participating food trucks are Izzy’s Food Truck, Shreff’s Hometown BBQ, Dr. Sweet, Ig’s Piggs BBQ and The Gringo Taco Truck. Barlip added that Dr. Sweet would bring two food trailers to the event so the festival would tout both a lemonade stand and a dessert truck to satisfy the sweet tooths of attendees with deep-fried Oreos and other sweet dishes.
“Shreff’s Hometown BBQ and Dr. Sweets are two trucks returning from last year,” Barlip said. “I’m going to try and move trucks around for each year at the festival since I want to get many of these homegrown businesses involved and known in the community. I want residents to taste the foods around the valley they might not have heard of.”
Barlip added that food trucks participating in the festival this year also use the event to reach residents who have yet to sample their goods.
Barlip could vouch for the food quality of this year’s participating trucks, noting the redneck egg roll he had last year from Shreff’s Hometown BBQ truck was “delicious.” The redneck egg roll consists of coleslaw, pulled pork and sauce wrapped up in an egg roll that is then deep-fried.
“I’m not sure of every ingredient in that egg roll, but all I know is that when I bite into the egg roll, it melted in my mouth,” Barlip recalled. “It was delicious.”
Apart from driving business and promoting local food trucks, the festival serves the dual purpose of fundraising for Shepherd’s Pantries. Each participating food truck can choose the percentage of its sales it would like to donate to the organization to help cover the clothing and food the organization provides for lower-income families in the area.
“I let the food truck owners decide what they donate to help our organization because I know they have to make a profit to keep building their business,” Barlip noted. “I don’t want to put them in a bind by saying, ‘You have to donate this much.’ I leave it up to the business so they can feel good about what they donated, and I feel good about whatever amount they donated because it came from their heart.”
The donations from last year’s festival were used to purchase personal items and food for Shepherd’s Pantry clients, and Barlip said this year’s funds would be used similarly.
“We feel that at Shepherd’s Pantry, we have to take care of our community, reach out,and help people who need help,” Barlip said. “This is one way we can do that: by bringing the community members together so people can see what we do and at the same time support us by buying great food from these local food trucks.”