“I know the second Wednesday of every month, I’m always right there at the doorway, waiting.”

Thanks to generous funding from Blue Cross Blue Shield North Carolina, Inter-Faith Food Shuttle’s longest-running hunger relief program is expanding into Tier 1 counties, to better serve our rural neighbors.

In short, we love our volunteers! April is Volunteer Appreciation Month, and we take appreciating our volunteers pretty seriously. 

The need for healthy food brings neighbors back to the Johnston County Mobile Market each month, and they are not alone. Nearly 80,000 people across the Food Shuttle’s service area lost monthly benefits of at least $95 per family when the SNAP Emergency Allotments were rolled back in March. Over 9,000 of them live in Johnston County, including Sarah, Jim and Luther.

At La Iglesia El Buen Pastor in Durham, Mobile Market coordinator Walkiria Castillo introduced us to Gladys., one of the neighbors who attends the Mobile Market each month to pick up free groceries, fresh produce, and baked goods. Gladys uses the food items she receives to supplement her family’s food budget as she takes care of the nine people in her household

To address the specific needs of senior nutrition, Inter-Faith Food Shuttle has established a variety of programs tailored to meet the unique challenges faced by older adults as they deal with the not-so-simple task of getting their daily meals. 

Food drives support many of Inter-Faith Food Shuttle’s hunger relief programs. The shelf-stable items our neighbors donate are packed into Grocery Bags for Seniors, stock School Pantries, provide nutritious meals for Mobile Markets, and so much more.  You can help build up the foundation for the foods we provide to our neighbors in need by holding a food drive with your own community—and we’ll help every step of the way!

Spring is finally here and everything is abloom! Beginning April 1, you’ll have the opportunity to grow your gift to Inter-Faith Food Shuttle during our Spring Match Challenge. All gifts made through May 31 will be matched up to $105,000, thanks to our generous funders, including the Mead Family Foundation and SOLV Energy.

Every once in a while, an idea comes along that is so simple in concept and makes so much sense that you wonder why things haven’t been running that way all along. That’s what happened with the produce initiative at Inter-Faith Food Shuttle. The idea was to buy produce at wholesale prices from limited-resourced local farmers and connect those farmers to partner agencies in their area who are distributing to neighbors in need. 

Inter-Faith Food Shuttle has been awarded an $800,000 Feeding America Retail Agency Capacity Building Grant. This significant funding will assist in growing the Food Shuttle’s retail rescue program by building capacity of agency partners to improve equitable access to nutritious food, with a focus on strengthening rural and/or communities of color. The grant is funded by Feeding America and the Walmart Foundation

The Community Health Education Department at Inter-Faith Food Shuttle is launching a new program called Diabetes Education for Seniors. The goal of this program is to help older adults manage their diabetes through access to diabetes education and an increase in healthy food needed to support the condition including whole grains, high fiber foods, and produce.