Two strangers with culinary skills form Boots on the Ground Meals to serve thousands of meals (in just a few weeks)!

Week 1
Carrie Serves 1,000+ Meals

On a cold and rainy Tuesday morning on March 19, 2019 Maple Street was opened as a route from Omaha into Waterloo, NE. Waterloo had been hit hard when several levees broke holding the Elkhorn River. That prior weekend Carrie Messinger had started to raise funds to purchase groceries to feed people in ground zero a few days. With her children on spring break with her ex husband, she filled her SUV full of as many grocery items as she could to feed as many people as possible three meals a day (until the funds or supplies ran out).

Within 36 Hours Carrie had served over 500 meals to flood victims including breakfast, lunch and dinner. She cooked wholesome food from scratch. Visitors to the church where she was working enjoyed eating homemade biscuits, mashed potatoes, chocolate cake (now called “flood cake”), and meatloaf.

That following Sunday, a stranger came to the church with a 5-gallon bucket of chicken noodle soup from his restaurant, Jack & Marys. Kip Oetter came to the church after seeing a post Jeff Jackson had made about visiting the church. When Kip saw that Carrie was serving 200-300 meals/day from a tiny church kitchen–he knew he wanted to help.

That night the two worked together in the kitchen. Kip and his friends helped close down the kitchen for the day and stayed after to help Carrie and volunteers go through their daily sanitizing routine, wiping all tables and chairs with OdoBan to prevent possible contamination due to E coli (which had been found in the standing floodwaters where flood victims lived).

Week 2
Carrie & Kip Serve Over 2,000 Meals

With Kip’s restaurant experience and Carrie’s culinary arts experience, the two chefs realized they could work together to produce ready-to-eat heat and serve meals for the flood cleanup efforts and help address hunger insufficiency for flood victims and families in the hardest hit areas. In a few hours, the two prepared enough meals to feed over 400 people!

Well into week 2, Carrie realized the public support for what she was doing was gaining local attention and the food was STILL coming in. Everything Carrie had purchased, the public multiplied generously. Food calls on social media netted pounds and pounds of donated fresh foods and canned goods to continue the meals program. The public began making regular food drops just for her meals program Soon one loaf of bread become 110 loaves and a bag of potatoes became over 300 pounds–one donation at a time. The donations had grown so much, Kip made a call out to Werner Trucking to get a cooler trailer donated to store their commodities.

Week 3
Move to a Bigger Kitchen
3,000 Meals Served to Date

The church the two friends were cooking in was changing direction and was moving to a mental health focus. That meant the kitchen needed a new home. Operations were moved to another location in Waterloo, but it didn’t last. Soon Bethany Lutheran Church in Elkhorn, NE offered their church kitchen. With a kitchen four times the size of their small kitchen before, Carrie and Kip would now prepare meals to feed thousands at a time!

Today
We Are a Nonprofit

Carrie and Kip are utilizing their combined strengths in culinary, marketing and restaurant management to operate a meals distribution program to take food out into the hardest-to-reach neighborhoods. They continue to address food insufficiency for families and children and provide meals support for volunteer organizations through cleanup and rebuilding. Bethany Lutheran Church has been an incredible supporter and many local corporate companies have stepped up to make donations.

With the larger kitchen, Boots on the Ground Meals hopes to begin feeding neighborhoods on regular meal rotations and to expand its reach further west to reach rural communities often passed over for national aid organizations.

The duo continue to raise monetary donations to purchase a mobile food trailer to take warm meals deeper into the flood zones. To donate, click here.