Right now, more than 173,000 people under the age of 18 in our communities don't know where their next meal might come from. That's one in five kids and teens facing hunger across central and eastern North Carolina. And these challenges are even worse during the summer months when school meals are [...]
Major new efforts help to connect more children and families throughout the region to nutritious food There's a reason you see the Food Bank and Food Lion together so frequently – it’s a relationship that goes back decades and one that’s very important across North Carolina and beyond. Volunteers from [...]
We know that kids thrive when they have access to no-cost breakfast and lunch at school. Research consistently shows that healthy school meals help kids pay attention and stay engaged — which leads to better grades, more consistent attendance, and higher graduation rates. It's why we're big fans of the School [...]
FIND FOOD DONATE VOLUNTEER For families facing food insecurity, summer has long marked a time when kids no longer have easy access to breakfast and lunch at school. Many parents and caregivers have to come up with [...]
Local hub distributed 8.7+ million meals as food insecurity hit 15-year high Community leaders gathered at the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina (the Food Bank) in Wilmington this week to mark the one-year anniversary of the nCino Hunger Solutions Center. Opened in 2023 after a community-led fundraising campaign, [...]
For the 1 in 4 North Carolina kids facing food insecurity, the summer months can be particularly challenging. With school out and limited transportation options, many families have to find a way to provide up 10 additional meals each week — a prospect that can have profound impact on children’s health [...]
It's the last week of school for Maureen Joy Charter school in Durham. The school’s Executive Director Mark Bailey sits in a Kindergarten classroom preparing to distribute boxes of non-perishable food and produce to families of those children. Maureen Joy partnered with Durham Children’s Initiative and the Food Bank to provide these essentials to 200 [...]
Kids Summer Meals (KSM) provides families with children and teens ages 2-17 an additional resource for healthy, nutritious meals for children during the summer months. The Food Bank has sponsored the program since summer 2009 and through it, have provided nearly 1.8 million meals. KSM sites typically offer breakfast and/or lunch for children when school [...]
Although this is the 14th year of our Stop Summer Hunger initiative, it never gets easier to face the fact that hundreds and thousands of children will be worrying about where their next meal will come from. Rather than looking forward to an extended break from homework and responsibilities, they will be counting down the [...]
In our Food Bank’s 34-county service area, more than 300,000 children are eligible for free and reduced-priced meals at school. When the COVID-19 crisis began, it was these kids and teens that our Programs team here at the Food Bank thought about first: what happens for them and their families if schools close, and after-school [...]
