2016 was a banner year for the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina. From a new building, to a new department, to a new record, here’s 6 moments that stand out from the rest as we look back on 2016.
- We fed more people than ever before! Our 6 Branches distributed over 64 million pounds of food, including a record 22 million pounds of produce.
- We officially launched our School Pantry Program, which allows families to get bags or boxes of food directly from their child’s school, in 11 sites.
- The Kids Summer Meals Program continues to serve more each summer! In 2016, more than 8,200 kids who were missing out on free or reduced-cost school meals received breakfast and lunch meals. Nearly 270,000 meals were provided.
- Following Hurricane Matthew, the Food Bank jumped in to provide relief. To date, more than 3 million pounds have been distributed to 28 affected counties. Our Greenville, New Bern, and Sandhills Branches serve some of the hardest hit areas and worked tirelessly to continue normal business operations while also prioritizing recovery efforts.
- The Raleigh Branch moved into a new facility that is double the size and even more efficient than its previous home. It will also allow us to distribute 60 million more pounds of food over the next 10 years.
- Our new Community Health and Engagement Department began work on setting our nutrition policy, increasing the amount of nutrient-dense food we distribute, connecting our partners and their clients to nutrition education and resources, and developing nutritional education curriculum. The curriculum will include programming in our on-site teaching kitchen. Ultimately the goal is to help individuals and families move out of food insecurity.
It will be hard to beat 2016 in terms of all the great things that are happening at the Food Bank, but together we can make even more of an impact in 2017. Unfortunately, nearly 640,000 of our neighbors still must make tough choices like paying for food or rent, or buying food or essential prescriptions. It is with your continued support that we can eliminate this choice for many. We hope you’ll continue with us on this journey until we can eliminate these choices for all our neighbors.
