On a sunny Saturday morning, Second Harvest’s Nutrition Services team was out at the High Point Farmers Market with a small crowd gathered around their table. “Would you like to give it a try?” asks Kina Charles as she sets out small cups of fruit salsa. A little boy cautiously takes the cup and dips a cinnamon chip into the fruit mixture. His face lights up as he tastes the tangy, fresh mixture. Mouth still full, he grabs the recipe sheet and hands it to his mother. “Let’s m

The following guest post is part of our series on Faith & Hunger contributed by Deon Parker, Senior Pastor at Life on Lexington, in High Point, North Carolina. Second Harvest’s Faith & Hunger series is looking at how we as a community should address hunger from a variety of faith perspectives. Deon Parker is a Christian, married his wife Julie in 2001 and has five children. He is a 2004 graduate of Piedmont Baptist College (now Piedmont International University in Winston-Sal

“I’d like to pray for my grandbaby who has been sick with a cold this week.” It is 9 AM on a Saturday and the hot North Carolina sun is already baking the parking lot outside Renaissance Road Church in Jamestown. But inside the renovated warehouse-turned-church, the air conditioning is on and a dozen senior citizens are standing in a circle, some joining hands, some leaning on canes for support, praying. Pastor Paula Bost is tall and lean and has a gentle laugh. The way she l

On a recent sunny Saturday morning, Second Harvest’s Nutrition Services team was out at the new High Point Farmers Market with a small crowd gathered around their table. “Would you like to give it a try?” asks Kina Charles as she sets out small cups of fruit salsa. A little boy cautiously takes the cup and dips a cinnamon chip into the fruit mixture. His face lights up as he tastes the tangy, fresh mixture. Mouth still full, he grabs the recipe sheet and hands it to his mothe

The room at Macedonia Family Resource Center in High Point, NC, is hushed as 10 seniors listen to the caller and move pinto beans over the squares on their Bingo cards. “Bingo!” says an elderly lady, looking up at the others, grinning. “Again?” says a gentleman in a flannel shirt, laughing. “I think her card is rigged!” Every Thursday afternoon a group of seniors take the Housing Authority bus from Elm Towers in downtown High Point to Macedonia to play a full two hours of bin

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

Nearly 40% of the food grown in the United States every year is wasted. That’s a lot of food being thrown into landfills, creating methane gas and other environmental hazards. Furthermore, that’s a lot of perfectly good food that many families right here in Northwest North Carolina could use. At the same time that all this food is being wasted, recent studies show that hunger in Northwest North Carolina remains persistently high. This is especially true for families who live