In 2013, Donna Brazile, former CNN Anchor, quoted the second stanza of "I Had Been Hungry All the Years", by Emily Dickinson.
“T'was this on tables I had seen
When turning, hungry, lone,
I looked in windows, for the wealth
I could not hope to own.”
As Brazile mentioned in the article, the poem “so captures the feeling of hunger, and emotional emptiness that follows.” The reality is that there are 251,780 hungry (food insecure) people in our seven-county service area. The Food Shuttle is working to build a food system that supports the residents of our service area with knowledge, skills, and access to healthy eating. To that end we are Feeding, Teaching, and Growing to support that system and our neighbors who will benefit from it.
In addition to the dynamic programs and services of the Food Shuttle, from time to time we have the great honor to participate in a highly impactful learning and sharing experience that supports our mission. One worth mentioning is our recent involvement with the Closing the Hunger Gap (CTHG) Conference held September 3, 4 and 5. We were honored to co-sponsor this conference with the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina, and host over 500 people from around the country. To learn about all the wonderful learning opportunities that were afforded at this amazing gathering, please visit https://thehungergap.org/2019-conference/ . The CTHG Network works to broadly engage anyone who genuinely supports community empowerment efforts involving food in low-income communities so that we can collectively:
Leverage food bank infrastructure and assets to strengthen local food systems and social and economic justice work
Build relationships and understanding between food banks and connect this to the broader community food security movement
Grow the movement to build a network culture of collaboration, innovation, and learning
Our path forward will be shaped by the opportunity to be a part of a national effort to address the root causes of hunger, to serve as an example of equity and inclusion in decision making, and to return to our roots as pioneers of innovative and transformative solutions to END HUNGER.