journalstar.com

'It's just not fun': Lincoln nonprofit that feeds, teaches neighborhood youth burglarized

A renovated Kansas City Chiefs party bus regularly visits three Lincoln neighborhoods, helping to feed about 175 people a week.

The bus — transformed into a space for meal sharing and painted hues of orange, green and blue — is operated by Food Fort, a nonprofit.

The organization uses food as an avenue to build relationships with young people in need of adult role models.

But the 9-year-old group hit a roadblock earlier this month when someone broke into the bus and stole an $800 generator inside.

"It's definitely not the end of the world — we will figure it out, and we will have a new generator," said Mason Keim, Food Fort's fundraising director. "It's just not fun to have to deal with."

Food Fort

The Food Fort provides food to children in underserved neighborhoods in Lincoln. The nonprofit's bus was recently burglarized. COURTESY PHOTO

Food Fort, a small organization with two full-time staff members and an annual budget under $200,000, stores its vehicles in the parking lot of a local church, which doesn't have cameras.

People are also reading…

While preparing to take the bus to the neighborhood around Clinton Elementary School on Aug. 11, two days after a destructive storm blew through Lincoln, Food Fort staffers noticed the padlock used to secure the bus was gone.

Soon, they discovered the generator typically kept in the bus was gone, along with a hitch attached to the back of the bus and chock blocks around its wheels, Keim said.

"For context of the burglary, it occurred during the weekend in which we had that large storm that caused many people to lose power," Keim said. "While we do hope that whoever stole the items genuinely needed them for some reason or another, this does have tangible impacts on our weekly work."

Keim said Michaela Akridge, the nonprofit's other full-time employee, founded the organization in 2016 to introduce kids from underserved areas of Lincoln to more adults committed to being a supportive force in their lives.

While doing service work with her church in Lincoln prior to founding Food Fort, Akridge would see many kids outside playing and interacting but not many "consistent adult figures" around, according to Keim.

Food Fort began its work in the neighborhood around Saratoga Elementary School but now serves three areas and has about two dozen volunteers.

In addition to Keim and Akridge, Food Fort has three part-time staff members. Food Fort also awards scholarships.

It visits the neighborhood around Clinton Elementary on Mondays from 5:30-6:30 p.m., the area around West Lincoln Elementary at the same Tuesdays and the area around Saratoga Elementary on Wednesdays.

Food Fort's fleet includes the bus and two trailers, a 20-foot one and a 10-foot one, which is refrigerated.

The bus has been outfitted with tables and its benches have been rearranged to form booths. Youths may eat inside the bus, where they have the opportunity to interact with Food Fort staffers. Adults can eat the food the nonprofit brings, but they have to stay outside the bus.

Food Fort

The Food Fort provides food to children in underserved neighborhoods in Lincoln. COURTESY PHOTO

Food Fort's "tree top" trailer, a renovated box trailer painted similar hues as the bus, is a space where youths can complete homework and participate in educational activities. Keim said about 25 students receive academic support from the trailer each week.

The nonprofit also has a garden and uses its refrigerated trailer from about May to October to distribute produce to the neighborhoods it visits.

Keim said the stolen generator helped heat and cool the bus, adding at times it also powered Crock-Pots and other food items. The stolen hitch was used to pull the refrigerated trailer.

Food Fort needs to bring in more funds to compensate for the missing items, Keim said.

"We have a lot of costs that we incur on a weekly basis because we do weekly programming, and so then just having $1,000 on top of that to fit in somewhere does create a little bit of stress," he said.

People who can't donate but want to help can volunteer with Food Fort. Or, they can simply share Food Fort's social media posts to spread word about its services.

Keim, who learned the importance of community in Lincoln, said he hopes Food Fort strengthens the communities around the kids it serves.

"I feel very lucky to have grown up here in Lincoln my entire life, and to have been exposed to the Lincoln community in the ways that I was," he said.

Top Journal Star photos and videos for August 2025