Because of you, more children will start the school day ready to learn, without the pang of hunger as a distraction. Our Back-to-School campaign reminds us that along with pencils and paper, children need a daily supply of food to take on new concepts, run on playgrounds, and socialize more successfully.
Our Community Health and Agriculture Education teams have collaborated to develop the new Food Shuttle Academy, an online learning platform with free, self-paced lessons on health, nutrition, agriculture, and more!
Our Spring Match challenge, made possible by generous funders, including SOLV Energy and the Mead Family Foundation, exceeded the $105,000 goal, raising an additional $70,000 to erase hunger!
Love, Tito’s has a heart for community gardens and increasing access to fresh, healthy foods. Their philanthropic Love, Tito’s Block to Block program, reconnects neighborhoods and creates community gardens and farms throughout the United States. Our hearts are in full bloom knowing that our Camden Street Garden will be the next beneficiary of Block to Block, allowing neighbors with mobility challenges to access our many activities more easily.
Peggy and Faye are two community members who receive grocery bags from Inter-Faith Food Shuttle’s Grocery Bags for Seniors program. Through this program, volunteers come together to pack over 2,000 grocery bags a month with fresh produce and non-perishable groceries and deliver them to local seniors who many be at risk of hunger.
The month of March is known for its energetic competition. Among the excitement of March Madness, there was another spirited contest craze that took place in the Tarheel State: The NC Legal Feeding Frenzy. The NC Legal Feeding Frenzy is an annual joint program of the NCBA Young Lawyers Division and Feeding the Carolinas food banks.
Giles Shih still remembers the haunting statistic on hunger from 13 years ago that 1 in 5 children in our community goes to bed hungry. For Giles, that was a call to action and it’s what motivated him to make his first donation to Inter-Faith Food Shuttle. He’s been a faithful supporter of the Food Shuttle ever since. Then last October, Giles signed up to be a sustaining monthly donor. With the understanding that such contributions provide reliable support for the Food Shuttle’s efforts to create a hunger free community, Giles became a Cultivator.
In an effort to be more culturally inclusive and broaden the reach of the Community Health Education initiative, a “Spanish Family Kitchen” series is currently in the works. The series will not only be presented in the Spanish language, but will feature nutrition information, culturally familiar recipes, and activities relevant to the LatinX community. A summer launch is planned for the online series.
September is Hunger Action Month: a time when the Feeding America network and the national public come together to raise awareness and help our neighbors facing the impossible choices of hunger. With an understanding of the economic and health impacts that COVID-19 has left on our community, we believe it’s more important than ever to bring attention to the reality of food insecurity in central North Carolina.
Due to inflation, and the rise in the cost of food and fuel, for many families, recovery simply means -- surviving. Because we anticipate heightened food insecurity to continue for the foreseeable future, your ongoing support helps provide expanded food assistance programs to families impacted by the crisis.
Nearly one year ago, I wrote my first newsletter to you and thanked you for your warm welcome and your continued commitment to our mission here at Inter-Faith Food Shuttle. At that time, we were at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, witnessing the pain and sadness in the aftermath of the events in Minneapolis, where thousands of our neighbors found themselves in a very dark situation. One year ago, I embraced that challenge knowing we had your continued support, and today, I continue to be grateful.
The partnership between the Carolina Hurricanes Foundation and the Food Shuttle is entering the second of a three-year agreement that sets its sights on tackling the issue of child hunger in rural communities and is supported through the aptly named GOAL Grant with generous total funding of $150,000.
