A volunteer dressed in a carrot costume? Find him posing for pictures outside New Love Center’s new mobile unit, which brings fresh food to rural communities in Pennsylvania, thanks to a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture.

New Love Center, a nonprofit in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, [pop. 4,166 in north-central PA] that focuses on food disparities, received $117,500 as part of a grant to expand rural health services in the Commonwealth. It was among five organizations in the state to receive funding in recent months from the Emergency Rural Health Care Grant Program, with grants available through the Biden Administration’s American Rescue Plan Act.

“Our clientele increased greatly over the pandemic — anywhere from 25-40%,” said Alice Fox Cline, acting director of operations and board vice president for New Love Center. “Our ongoing needs for food have not changed, they’ve only increased. We consider ourselves very blessed that we’ve got this funding and can continue to provide what we see as basic necessities.”

The money has come in partial payments and in the form of reimbursement grants to offset the group’s expenditures, said Dave Winkleman, New Love Center’s board president. The organization’s mobile unit can help catch Jersey Shore residents from falling through the cracks due to lack of transportation or disability, and supplements numerous programs at New Love that target food insecurity.