Inter-Faith Food Shuttle has been awarded an $800,000 Feeding America Retail Agency Capacity Building Grant. This significant funding will enable the Food Shuttle to continue its work in improving equitable access to nutritious food, with a focus on strengthening rural and/or communities of color and, in doing so, assist in growing the organization's retail rescue program. The grant is funded by Feeding America and the Walmart Foundation.
The Food Shuttle currently partners with over 200 agencies to distribute food to neighbors in need throughout seven counties in central North Carolina. The Feeding America /Walmart grant will shift the balance within local food systems by providing equipment, technology, and training for the partner agencies, facilitating their capacity for taking on direct relationships with local retailers and small farmers. This will free up Food Shuttle drivers from some of the longer routes in outlying rural areas to pick up donations and deliver to other agencies. The ultimate goal of the three-year partnership will be to set agencies up for full ownership of retail relationships in their area.
By creating stronger agencies and farmers, this plan is designed to lead to stronger communities. Agency (and farm) capacity improvements means that partners can go further and provide more nutritious food. Moreover, their distributions will be based on direct knowledge of local preferences, which has added implications for reducing food waste.
A key part of this model is increasing the frequency of local pickups and deliveries by partner agencies, who have the best understanding of the needs in their community. Using vehicles and equipment provided by funding passed through from this grant, partners can meet those needs faster working directly with retail partners themselves. More frequency means more local food access, less food waste, and even increases food freshness as the shelf life of products recovered is extended.
This funding effort also strengthens BIPOC farmers. Providing equipment and labor support during the heavy growing season will have long-term benefits for increased crop production; the agency relationships created will provide a welcome outlet to prevent farm produce waste.
“Increased localization of retail partnerships and farmer partnerships is the single most effective thing we could do to make tangible progress to sustainable food systems at this time,” said L. Ron Pringle, President and CEO of Inter-Faith Food Shuttle. “Our partner agencies know the people and the challenges in their local area. This generous funding from Feeding America and the Walmart Foundation will equip them to do more and have more of the decision-making power in creating the next solutions to end hunger in their communities.”
The Food Shuttle looks forward as partners and neighbors reap the benefits from this funding, and to what will be learned next from them as they take ownership of food access in their communities.