‘Fueling Our Heroes’ supports truck drivers during COVID-19, makes stop in Highland

Brittany Richardson ran into an unexpected problem during the early weeks of the coronavirus pandemic: All the truck stops shut down.

It was a particular problem for people in Richardson’s profession: Long-distance truck drivers. Richardson, who drives for Riverside Transport Inc. out of Indiana, is also a YouTube broadcaster with 31,000 subscribers following her “American Truckers” channel and her hot-pink truck. Her posts range from the changing truck stop culture to surviving tornadoes in Colorado to new gadgets for the truck and a coronavirus vlog.

But one problem facing the trucking industry hit unexpectedly right at the start: Food.

“In the first couple weeks of the virus, everybody was trying to comply with guidelines and almost all of the truck stop restaurants shut down without warning,” Richardson said. “It left the drivers without any options.”

Finding fresh food is already a problem on the road. Richardson is lucky she has a good-sized refrigerator and crock pot in her truck, but a lot of drivers don’t have that kind of space.

Enter “Fueling Our Heroes,” a six-day, seven-state road trip sponsored by CDLLife and partnered with Volvo Truck North America and Cobra Electronics. The plan was to distribute free, nutritious meals to truck drivers across the Midwest with stops recently in Highland and Mascoutah.

Sadie Church, vice president of marketing for CDLLife, said truck drivers rely heavily on truck stops for food. With big-box stores like Walmart and grocery stores limiting the number of people in a store, truck drivers didn’t have the flexibility to stand in a long line waiting for entry when they have a schedule to keep.

“If you’re on a dedicated route, you can’t wait three hours to get into a grocery store,” Church said.

“Fueling Our Heroes” traveled 1,985 miles across the seven states, making three stops a day to hand out free meals, healthy and balanced meals for an industry that needs more focus on health and wellness, Church said.

“It was food you could grab out of the cooler and heat up in a microwave,” Church said. “We wanted to give them a nutritious meal that’s hearty and good for you.”

Richardson joined the trip to help promote it, and said there were “so many pictures of smiles.” But behind the smiles, the overall reaction among the drivers was shock, she said. Why were the meals free? What was the catch?

“That was the big thing they said: Why?” Richardson said. “They said, ‘Nobody ever does anything for us.’ I think they felt that compassion, which is important.”

Richardson said she feels the overall perception of the public has been very negative toward truck drivers, and their work is unappreciated.

“Without trucks, within seven days the nation would be out of food,” she said. “The nation depends on us ... We need to appreciate truck drivers, and show them that appreciation even after this is over.”

Concern over being exposed to COVID-19

Truckers have other concerns besides finding food on the run. They may be widely exposed to the virus, coming into contact with people in many places over the course of a run.

“A lot of the drivers we talked to were scared of getting it themselves, of bringing it home to their families,” Church said. “One driver said she didn’t want to risk bringing it home to her family, so she’s self-isolating from them.”

Richardson said it’s a personal concern for her.

“I’ve been all over the country. Do I want to risk going home and exposing my family?” she said.

“Fueling Our Heroes” made some local stops in its first run, and it was so popular and successful Church launched another run a few weeks ago. In the end, they distributed more than 5,000 free meals to truckers on the job.

“The most important thing is that a lot of people recognize how important the drivers are,” Church said. “We would not have stocked grocery shelves and hospitals without truck drivers. It’s always been vital and they’ve always been important.”

Program on hold for the time being

With many states opening up again, “Fueling Our Heroes” is now on hold.

“We’re going to sit back and wait a little bit,” Church said. “But if there is a spike and things shut down again ... we will wait and be ready.”

Fans and followers interested in keeping up with Church and Richardson on their adventure can do so on the CDLLife app, the CDLLife Facebook page, the CDLLife YouTube channel, the Brittney in Pink Facebook page and the American Truckers YouTube channel.