Businesses Feed the Hungry, Build Community Spirit by Volunteering at IFFS

We are fortunate to live in a thriving business community, where business leaders understand the importance of giving back.  Last week , that gift came in the form of VOLUNTEERS…enthusiastic, spirited, and hardworking employees from area Targets and Fifth Third Bank.

Target brought almost 100 team members from 10 stores out to volunteer and glean strawberries at Smith's Nursery and Produce Farm in Benson! They picked 850 lbs of strawberries (the most strawberries we've ever gleaned in a single day - way to go!) for the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle to distribute to those in need.  Each store also donated over $100 worth of food for BackPack Buddies!

Check out some highlights from their day of gleaning:

Fifth Third was also at Inter-Faith Food Shuttle all last week volunteering through our various innovative hunger-relief programs. They really got to engage with the work that we do in many arenas to end hunger in our community. They helped with direct hunger relief, providing food to those who are hungry right now in our community, and they also helped with our farms and gardens program, which helps to grow a healthy, vibrant local community by increasing access to local foods and empowering people to take control of their own food resources.

On Monday, Fifth Third Bank brought in 480 pounds of canned goods collected from their Garner, Cary, Blue Ridge Bank, Blue Ridge Office, and Six Forks locations!

On Tuesday, a group bagged and delivered produce and grocery bags for low-income seniors and families.

On Wednesday they were out on our Raleigh Teaching Farm, weeding and mulching rows of beets, threshing arugula seeds, and more!

Thursday they headed out to our Community Garden at Alliance Medical Ministry where they helped harvest turnips, plant tomatoes, hill some rows, spread cover crop, and did some light weeding and composting.

And on Friday, they returned to our warehouse to pack BackPacks for our BackPack Buddies program providing weekend meals for food insecure children in our 7 county service area. It was a pleasure having the Fifth Third Bank team around IFFS all week, and it was great to see the group come out as a workplace to make a difference, helping to end hunger in their local community!

To find out about more opportunities to volunteer with the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle,  visit our volunteer page here and sign up to learn about new opportunities to get involved.

IFFS, Zommpa, and Sol Food

The Bull City Food Exchange took place this past Sunday at Full Steam Brewery in Durham!  This event was to support the partnerships between three new food Durham-based organizations (Zommpa, Real Good Food, and Sol Food Mobile Farm) and and to learn about innovative initiatives that promote strong communities through good food! Morgan Medders and Ginger Gibson from the IFFS Nutrition Team were present to share information about volunteering with IFFS's Nutrition, Farms, and Gardens Programs, as well as to share a healthy recipe of Lettuce Wraps with Veggies and Beans! IFFS was very excited to be a collaborating partner at this event!

IFFS Spring Fling Farm Festival

Last week, we held our Spring Planting celebration, announcing a $700K USDA grant to fund our Young Farmer Training Program. What else has been happening on the IFFS farm this Spring? Plenty!  Sunday, April 1st, was the IFFS Spring Fling: A Farm Festival for the Whole Family, and the beautiful weather made the day perfect for celebrating springtime, indeed! There were lots of kids’ activities! Kids could decorate a clay pot in which to grow their own garden and take the plant home with them. There was also natural egg dying, an egg hunt, face-painting, games (like pin the tail on the rooster), and more!

We were very excited to enjoy a demo and lesson from Arthur Gordon, Chef Emeritus and Owner of the Irregardless Café in Raleigh, which focuses on fresh, seasonal meals! The vegan wild tofu reubens he made were delicious - what a great way to use fresh cabbage from the garden!

          

For dessert, we had Vanilla Ice Cream from NC State University – made right on their campus with fresh milk and cream from their cows!

Kids and adults alike enjoyed the farm tour led by Young Farmer Training Program Apprectice Hunter and IFFS Farm Educator Sun Butler! Participants got to know the IFFS chickens, goats, bees, vermicomposting worms, and baby chicks!

         

Along the way, those on the tour even got to witness a very special event – a bee swarm! Farm Educator Sun Butler was explaining the apiculture (bee-keeping) operations on the farm, when a great buzzing was heard, and the swarm emerged from the hive! This happens when the queen bee leaves the nest with a large group of drones to mate and form a new colony.

A Food Matters demonstration showing some easy, farm healthy recipes to make with veggies and herbs from the garden piqued our taste buds for warmer weather foods! Ginger, IFFS Nutrition Health Fair Intern, demonstrated how to make a classic tabouli salad, a black bean salsa, and a Greek-style cucumber and yogurt dip with dill. Yum!

The day of festivities also included a composting demonstration! Participants dissected the compost pile, observed the pile "cooking itself" at 150 degrees, and visited with the composting worms in our new wormhouse. Participants also learned how soil biology makes nutrients available to the plants when organic matter is added to the soil in the form of compost or cover crops.

Slideshow of photos:

Catering with a Cause at the Capitol

Last week was national volunteer week, and Thursday, April 19th, our Catering with a Cause team served up some tasty treats at the reception for the Governor's Commission on Volunteerism & Community Service Awards at the Capitol Building Rotunda in downtown Raleigh! Chef Terri even received compliments from Governor Bev Perdue on the spread as well! Catering with a Cause is a delicious way to impact your community!

The purpose of Inter-Faith Food Shuttle’s not-for-profit catering program is to generate revenue for funding our hunger-relief programs.

How the catering program works:

• Graduates are hired from our Culinary Job Training Program (CJTP)
• Catering with a Cause serves as an extended training program for CJTP graduates to learn catering-specific skills before beginning a career in the food service industry
• Meals are prepared in the kitchens of our headquarters and at the kitchen we run at InterAct's Family Safety and Empowerment Center
• Catering with a Cause focuses on providing boxed lunches and breakfast, but we can also customize menus for your event.

Contact us today for your next catered meal!  Call (919) 863-9675 or email terri@foodshuttle.org for more information if your organization is interested in using Catering with a Cause for  your next meeting, event or gathering!

Seeking Volunteer Field Gleaning Supervisors

Be a leader in the community and expand the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle's capacity to fight hunger, by supervising groups of volunteers to glean crops on local farms. Our Field Gleaning program connects farmers who have excess crops with people who need fresh produce. The idea is simple. Farmers call us when they have extra crops. We bring a farmer-trained volunteer crew, gather the produce, and distribute it to people in need in our seven-county area. We offer training. Supervise as often as fits your schedule, once a week or once a year.

Qualifications

Flexible and adaptable Resourceful, creative thinker Good judgment Enjoys meeting new people Encouraging and able to motivate others

To learn more about this opportunity, email localproduce@foodshuttle.org.

It's raining healthy snacks!

Last Wednesday, a great group of volunteers came to the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle's Nutrition Volunteer Social for a night of good food, good company, trivia, raffles, and prizes! The highlight of the evening came when the strawberry piñata was finally broken after some creative team problem-solving.  Thanks to all who came out for the event!

Celebrating with Healthy Snacks

To celebrate their success, Cooking Matters participants at Fellowship HR made baked tortilla chips, mango salsa, and cranberry-lime fizz, a tasty alternative to sugary sodas.  Thank you to Chef Alain, Mary, Christine, and Whitney for putting on a wonderful class and graduating all fifteen participants!

IFFS in the Feeding America Spotlight

IFFS is a member of Feeding America, the national network of Food Banks, and they have featured our programs three times in the past week! Feeding America's Programs Specialist, Jaspreet Bindra, recently visited the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle and has blogged about it and posted a video from her visit to our Raleigh Teaching Farm. She specializes in mobile pantries and will also be sharing her experience visiting our Medical Mobile Market distribution site. Look for her next blog in the series soon! Meanwhile, check out the video here:

Our video on the Pilot Year of our Field Gleaning program was also featured in Feeding America's Network Spotlight. Check it out here:

"Hunger Hits Home" April 14th on Food Network

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"Hunger Hits Home"

April 14th

8:00pm EST

on Food Network

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Watch the trailer here.

One in five children under age 18 right here in the Triangle are hungry. Heartbreakingly, that number jumps to one in four children under age 5.

Food Network and No Kid Hungry team up for the new documentary, "Hunger Hits Home," airing April 14 on Food Network, narrated by Jeff Bridges, national spokesman for No Kid Hungry. Hunger Hits Home takes a first-hand look at the crisis of childhood hunger in America through the eyes of the people on the frontlines of the battle - parents and children, anti-hunger activists, educators, and politicians committed to eradicating the problem. Hunger Hits Home examines the causes, complications, and misconceptions about childhood hunger in the United States, as well as some of the innovative solutions being put into practice today. The documentary tells the story of three American families facing hunger and takes a close up look at the impact hunger has on a child. It also provides a potent and urgent call to action - something everyone can do to make a difference.

Learn more about how Inter-Faith Food Shuttle pioneers innovative, transformative solutions designed to end hunger in our community at our website: www.foodshuttle.org