The following guest blog post is from Scott Andree Bowen, who works closely with Second Harvest as the Director of Youth and Food Pantry Ministries at Maple Springs United Methodist Church. Scott is also a member of the Winston-Salem Urban Food Policy Council, overseeing the Breakfast in Classroom Task Force. My name is Scott Andree Bowen and I am an advocate for the children of Forsyth County. I am a former educator in the Winston-Salem/Forsyth School District. I am currentl

Providence Kitchen— the organization’s latest dining-for-a-cause social enterprise now open in downtown Winston-Salem. It wasn’t long ago that Ben was a student at Providence Culinary Training (PCT), a 13-week culinary program located in the food bank and designed to launch local residents from culinary jobs into culinary careers. Ben is among the nearly 800 graduates of that program who are now working in the local restaurant industry for family-supporting wages. In fact, ev

Labrone Faulks has his chef’s jacket nonchalantly draped over his shoulder as he comes into Providence Kitchen. The space is loud with drills and hammers as workers install kitchen equipment and put up final touches around the restaurant. Labrone watches a worker level a sign before securing it into place. “This has all come together at the right time,” he says, smiling. He’s got a sense that this is how things ultimately tend to work. “Some big things had changed in my life.

Recently, a small van filled with senior citizens from High Point were headed on a Senior Resources of Guilford County outing to a candy store. Ellen Whitlock, of Senior Resources, learned that one gentleman–who had insisted on coming on the trip–attended but never went into the store. “It turns out that he just wanted to drive somewhere to see something new. He just wanted to ride in the van,” she says. Anecdotally, we know that isolation and lack of access to transportation

To say they can set up this tent in the dark is not an analogy: it is literally what food bankers Joe Kilar and Michael Berry do with some frequency. Long before many of us are awake, they are unloading boxes, setting up tents, and, at this time of the year, trying to stay warm. It is Holiday Food Drive Season, when food bankers work with our wonderful supporters at WXII 12 News to harness the good will of our communities and collect much-needed food and funds for our work. D

In Watauga County, a young couple is homeless, unemployed and raising a two month old infant. They were living in the woods prior to finding pace in a local shelter, and the mother nearly lost her life after a C-section and improper after-care. She has been hospitalized for nearly the entire two months her child has been alive. In Caldwell County, an older woman worked her entire career in a manufacturing plant and is now in poor health. She sees seven doctors on a regular ba

133 billion pounds of food is wasted every year, yet 42 million Americans do not get enough nutritious food to eat to lead healthy, productive lives. It was those contrasting realities that led to an innovation dubbed “Food Banking”—the creation of non-profit regional warehouse operations prepared to solicit, inventory, inspect, store and distribute food to other non-profit agencies feeding their communities. Northwest North Carolina is an agricultural region, with farmers gr

It is early April and Ellen Kirby is standing in a field of rye and vetch surveying the land. It is a cold spring afternoon and a steady wind is blowing, creating ripples in the cover crops. Ellen and fellow volunteer Patsy Dwiggins are thrilled that the rye and vetch have taken. These cover crops will be plowed under in the next week or so, adding vital nutrients to the soil. For almost 20 years, these three large fields behind Crossnore School near downtown Winston-Salem ha