Because of you, more children will start the school day ready to learn, without the pang of hunger as a distraction. Our Back-to-School campaign reminds us that along with pencils and paper, children need a daily supply of food to take on new concepts, run on playgrounds, and socialize more successfully.
Our Community Health and Agriculture Education teams have collaborated to develop the new Food Shuttle Academy, an online learning platform with free, self-paced lessons on health, nutrition, agriculture, and more!
Our Spring Match challenge, made possible by generous funders, including SOLV Energy and the Mead Family Foundation, exceeded the $105,000 goal, raising an additional $70,000 to erase hunger!
Love, Tito’s has a heart for community gardens and increasing access to fresh, healthy foods. Their philanthropic Love, Tito’s Block to Block program, reconnects neighborhoods and creates community gardens and farms throughout the United States. Our hearts are in full bloom knowing that our Camden Street Garden will be the next beneficiary of Block to Block, allowing neighbors with mobility challenges to access our many activities more easily.
Through a variety of nutrition education classes and creative approaches to healthy eating, the small but mighty force of dietetic educators o Community Health Education are making a real difference in providing long-term health and hunger solutions for our neighbors across central North Carolina.
Sallie Simpson helps with the Farm Stand most Saturdays and serves as culinary instructor for the Cooking Matters classes that are held at Urban Ministries. “Every person in the class realized tangible improvement by the end of the class... one of the doctors in the Open Door Clinic ...told me that the class would practically dance down the hall as they left the class each day!”
Tell us about your first-ever time volunteering with IFFS.
It was a cold, sleeting day in February – we were raking rocks out of a newly plowed field and spreading mulch. Everyone was so nice and we laughed so much that I decided to keep coming back!
Describe a volunteer moment that felt very rewarding.
Last spring I co-led a Cooking Matters class at Urban Ministries with Ana Cardia, and we had such a motivated class – each participant had been sent to class by their doctor for diet-related conditions. Every person in the class realized tangible improvement by the end of the class and one of the doctors in the Open Door Clinic at Urban Ministries told me that the class would practically dance down the hall as they left the class each day!
What would you say to recruit a friend to volunteer with IFFS?I would tell people that this is a great place to volunteer – the people are wonderful to work with. There is a lot of work, and lots of fun as well!
