PENDLETON, OR – To better deal with temperatures dipping into the 20s Wednesday night, Kristin Swaggart and her two Pendleton High School volunteers wore jackets and beanies instead of their usual chef gear as they got ready to start serving food to the city’s homeless.

The trio was at work outside the Pendleton Warming Station in the state-of-the-art food truck recently purchased by “Chef K” and the school’s culinary arts program with a $100,000 grant from Farmers Insurance.

The warming station is featured prominently in the culinary program’s plans to deploy its newly purchased food truck into the community and expand its field operations.

Some kinks were still being worked out: as freshman Autumn Saxton washed her hands before handling the food, water stopped flowing out of the faucet. Saxton’s hands were thoroughly lathered by the time Swaggart was able to get the generator back online.

The food truck was made possible by the grant from Farmers Insurance, which required an extended campaign from the teacher and Pendleton High School. Her food truck concept was one of the top vote getters in the country and when the prize was announced at a special ceremony in November 2016, students rushed Warburg Court.

Find the entire article at eastoregonian.com [here]