Over the last few years, the Food Bank has taken action to educate ourselves and step up our partnerships with organizations that work to empower systemically marginalized groups. This includes programs to reach LatinX and Indigenous communities, more Spanish-speaking staff, translated website and documents, and sourcing and distributing more culturally meaningful foods.
The most recent step toward distributing this food is a partnership with eight Wake County agencies to receive boxes of nonperishable food that are culturally meaningful to the LatinX community. About 450 boxes are provided each month and include items such as canned chicken, canned beans and corn, tortillas, rice, and cereal.
Tri-Area Ministry food pantry in Wake Forest is one of the agencies who are seeing the benefits of distributing more culturally relevant foods.
“Despite providing services in a geographic area which has a sizeable Hispanic population, we traditionally haven’t fed a large number of Latino families. We attribute this, in part, to not having a consistent supply of culturally appropriate food,” said Michael Burger, Board Chairman at Tri-Area Ministry. “Through our partnership with the Food Bank, we are now able to offer a variety of food items which are more desirable. Our clients are appreciative of our efforts to provide them with foods which are familiar.”
We continue to learn and implement ways to make the Food Bank more accessible. Our website is now available in Spanish, including our Food Finder.
Your turn
If you believe in the Food Bank’s mission and would like to help support & sustain our programs, please make a donation today. Over 60% of our funding comes from individual donations by Hunger Heroes just like you! We could never do this important work alone.
This story was originally featured in our Hunger Matters newsletter, published Winter 2022.
