Come See the "Spirit of America" at Hooker Field on July 4th

The Spirit of America, an American Red Cross mobile kitchen, is planned to be part of the Red Cross display on July 4 at Hooker Field, 450 E. Commonwealth Blvd, Martinsville. The Red Cross is the featured "charity of the night." It is also a "fireworks night." Tours of the mobile kitchen will be available Friday July 4 prior to and during the game, it will be located in the main parking lot and will arrive around 5pm. The Spirit of America is a self-contained, 53-foot trailer designed to produce as many as 30,000 hot, nutritionally balanced "home style" meals daily from within heavily impacted disaster areas. Meals prepared in the mobile kitchen are then loaded on Red Cross Emergency Response Vehicles and distributed to disaster victims throughout a disaster area.

The "Spirit" can operate anywhere: next to a standing building, in a parking lot or even in an open field. The unit can function in a stand-alone mode, or be connected to working community water and electrical systems. It contains portable (fresh) water tanks and wastewater disposal tanks, four propane tanks and a 65kw silent-running generator. The kitchen facilities include three tilt skillets, to stacked convection ovens, a roll-in-rack oven, and industrial size mixer, hot water on-demand system, five stainless steel sinks, and a walk-in refrigerator. The ‘Spirit' also carries a pressure washer, a fire suppression system, an electric lift, heating and air conditioning systems, a gas leak detector, and a winterization package.

Notes: this unit is housed in Roanoke; the driver since 2004 is Jim Plympton; as of this moment the unit has not been placed on ‘stand by status' for the storm moving up the east coast; don't miss this opportunity to tour this state-of-the-art mobile kitchen.