In all the hustle and bustle, we know it’s important to you to give back during the holiday season and reflect on community.

It wasn’t that long ago that hunger was generally perceived in a vacuum. But today, food insecurity is being seen as a health problem that impacts over 41 million people nationwide, with a financial toll estimated at $160 billion a year. Food insecurity has slowly declined over the last several years, but the scope of the problem–and its implications on the health of families and our communities–is continuing to garner increasing attention, especially across the healthcare in

***Update: 10/10/18*** Several of our Second Harvest Food Bank team members will be spending time in the eastern part of the state to assist with ongoing Hurricane Florence relief activities. Members of our staff will be head in different directions to assist our sister food banks, Food Bank of Central & Eastern NC and Second Harvest Food Bank of Southeastern NC in New Bern, Southern Pines, and Fayetteville through the end of the month. ***Update: 10/1/18*** Second Harvest F

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

This Veterans Day, we are each thinking of the veterans who have given so much to our great state and great nation. Unfortunately, too many veterans face poverty and food insecurity. Lavinia Jackson, a veteran advocate and poet based out of the Triad, issues this important reminder of difficult journey faced by many veterans and of our deep responsibility to serve those who served us. Veterans, no matter the branch, all begin with basic training. We take an oath and spend wee

It’s the type of community where you might well be told to “Turn by the oak tree up by the old Harris’ farm” by way of directions. Shady Grove United Methodist Church is surrounded by small residential neighborhoods and farm fields. And every 2nd Monday of the month, Shady Grove’s pastor and volunteers open the doors to the Shady Grove UMC Food Pantry and welcome their community in. Second Harvest works with and provides food to over 470 partner programs, many of which are ju

Last Thanksgiving, Crystal figured out how to cook turkey in a crockpot. The 300 square feet of their motel room was filled with the familiar smells of the holidays and for a moment felt like a home. She and her husband, Tom, enjoyed the meal on the bed, while their baby toddled around the room pushing a wagon of blocks. This was their second month in the motel. After losing an apartment where they lived with another couple, they moved into this motel near downtown Greensboro

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

Ana Atwater stands in the doorway of Hinshaw United Methodist Church in Greensboro, propping the door with her foot. She warmly greets families as they arrive with a broad smile that sets the tone for the evening: “We are here to learn from each other, to enjoy in fellowship and to eat.” Half an hour later, the kitchen is alive with activity. Cutting boards are out and knives click along them, cutting mushrooms and bell peppers. “Try holding the knife back a little,” sugges

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

On July 19, 2017, the US House Budget Committee passed its FY2018 budget resolution. The House will be voting on this resolution this week. Your Representative needs to hear from you today. The resolution includes at least $203 billion in cuts to mandatory programs—many of which are critical to low-income families and to our work as a community to ensure they have the nutrition they need to thrive. Specifically, the resolution calls for $10 billion in cuts directed at agricul

“Their doors would close.” This is what Susan Cox said would happen to hundreds of food assistance programs if TEFAP (The Emergency Food Assistance Program) decreased. Cox should know: not only does she serve on the Second Harvest Food Bank Board of Directors and as the Chair of the Second Harvest Agency Advisory Council, but she sees the important impact of TEFAP everyday in her own program, One Step Further in Guilford County. The food provided to Second Harvest Food Bank a

This past week we celebrated our volunteers at Second Harvest’s Annual Volunteer Dinner. And it got us thinking about everything volunteers do to feed community with us. We get a lot done at Second Harvest. You all know this because you see it: our facilities are busy. Forklifts zip around, pallets of food get lifted onto trucks, vegetables go in and out of the coolers. This past year alone we distributed nearly 36 million pounds of food. And we couldn’t do it without our vol

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