GRANITE QUARRY — Over the past few Wednesday nights, the Plant World bus has been stationed in the parking lot of The Cove Church and serving food to anyone in need.

The mobile kitchen is being run and staffed by Collectors Cove owner Nick Geller and his mother-in-law Kim Irby, who owns Plant World along with Geller’s wife Kailey Geller.

Irby and Geller said that they came up with the idea because they both wanted to serve the community and, as they were entering the new year, they were looking for new ways to get out and help.

“We both own local businesses in Salisbury, we love Salisbury and we really want to give back to the community and we felt like this was a way to do that. I know there are some great organizations already in Salisbury, but I still feel like there’s still a lot of work that can be done for the community and we’re hoping to push that forward,” said Geller.

The decision to use the bus came because of the work Irby did herself in the past, when she would drive around Salisbury with hot dogs, asking people on the street if they needed something to eat.

“Every Wednesday, I would take big boxes of hot dogs and just drive around with my husband just looking for people and just give them bags of hot dogs and clothes when it was really cold outside. And then I’d just listen to their stories, it’s never what everybody always thinks, so I just have compassion for how they got to where they are,” said Irby.

Geller said that for the first few weeks, they advertised the service on community Facebook groups and reached out to local churches, and the group had been feeding between 25 and 40 people every week by the end of their set hours of 6 to 7 p.m. After they stop serving from the parking lot, Geller and Irby said they drive through Salisbury, particularly downtown, asking anyone they see if they would like something to eat and offering the leftover food.

“We really want to spread the word and it’s not going to be one of those places that comes and goes. We want to grow in Salisbury, and our mission is to serve about 300 people every Wednesday, whether it’s through delivery of people coming by, however it’s possible. There (are) a lot of hungry kids out there, and that’s where our hearts are,” said Geller.

Geller also noted that the group performs deliveries to people in need who either cannot drive or for other reasons are unable to leave their homes. He said that they performed four such deliveries last week.

In the future, Geller said that they are also looking to find a location closer to downtown Salisbury to set up, as their current location left them slightly off the beaten path. He said that they had thought about setting up at a revolving slate of locations, if they were allowed, but that they were worried about the news not reaching someone who needed help.

“For now, it has been a little bit easier to have one stationary location for the people who don’t have phones and rely more on that word of mouth. That’s the only issue we would see with jumping place to place, is that we just tell everybody that we’re going to be here every Wednesday, if it changes look at our Facebook, but I would hate for someone not to see it and try to come get a meal and we’re not here,” said Geller.

For now though, both Geller and Irby said that they are simply looking to serve as many people as possible, and were hoping to be able to partner with businesses, organizations and people from throughout Salisbury to make that possible.

“We just plan on cooking a meal every week, and whatever we can take in for donations is what we’ll give out to the community. We know a lot of people want to serve, they want to help people, sometimes they just don’t know how to or it might just not be for them to go out and take on that mission. But there are always a lot of people who are willing to donate something and we will be the action behind that for those people as well,” said Geller.