The story below is from our May/June 2021 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
Local food organizations focus on “food access” to help our hungry neighbors.
It’s Saturday morning and a steady stream of cars is filtering into The Rescue Mission, located just outside downtown Roanoke. Sometimes the line backs up to I-581 requiring police to direct traffic. These families in need are here to pick up their monthly Manna Mission Ministries grocery box, filled with 40-50 pounds of nonperishable food staples, fresh produce and frozen meats.
When one thinks of community members experiencing hunger, the term “food insecurity” comes to mind. But not having enough food is only part of the picture. Even if one has proximity to food, it might not be affordable, appropriate, whether for cultural, religious or health reasons, or one may lack resources to prepare the food. These nuances are better captured by the term food access.
“We try to think about food access because it encompasses more than just pounds of food,” says Kimberly Butterfield, a Virginia Cooperative Extension Family & Consumer Science Agent. “As stated by the Healthy Food Policy Project, ‘Food is accessible when it is affordable and community members can readily grow or raise it, find it, obtain it, transport it, prepare it and eat it.’ A big barrier that still remains is the tools needed to prepare healthy foods, like a good quality sharp knife or cutting board, or access to a real kitchen.”
According to the hunger relief nonprofit Feeding Southwest Virginia, one in eight Southwest Virginia residents are hungry. Throughout Roanoke, organizations are working to eradicate hunger in our community by addressing barriers to food access, including proximity to healthy foods, affordability and education.
The Rescue Mission
The Rescue Mission is a faith-based organization that helps people in crisis through services such as emergency shelter, a residential recovery program and job skills training. Food plays a big role, too. The Rescue Mission receives over one million pounds of donated food annually, which is utilized by dining services or distributed in Manna Mission Ministries grocery boxes. Last year, Manna distributed 9,706 boxes, a 20% increase over the previous year due to pandemic-related unemployment and economic hardship. Manna also served as a hub for community partners, such as churches and KIDS Soar, to supplement their food access outreach. In the dining room, the Rescue Mission serves an average of 384 meals daily across breakfast, lunch and dinner. A hot meal provides not only sustenance, but nourishing hospitality from community volunteers or employees like cook Troy Alexander.
“It’s not just the meal. It’s the smiles and encouragements…guests come through the line just to see Troy, to feed their souls and to make them feel like there’s a time for family,” says Becci Sisson, the Rescue Mission’s Director of Development. “The dining room and Manna Ministries are my two favorite places because we see families eating together at a table, at a time that’s hard in their life.”
Feeding Southwest Virginia
An affiliate of Feeding America, Feeding Southwest Virginia (FSWVA)’s food banks and programs served 118,000 food insecure individuals monthly in its 26-county, 9-city region pre-COVID. Last year, food insecurity increased due to pandemic-related school closures and unemployment. FSWVA responded by tapping into its Emergency Food Assistance Program; thanks to donations from government and local retailers and companies, FSWVA and its 380 partner agencies have distributed over 20 million pounds of food since last March.
Though FSWVA’s mission to get more food to more food insecure residents remains, it’s working to offer more culturally appropriate food that reflects the cuisines and diets of Roanoke Valley’s multi-cultural demographics. FSWVA has also increased its focus on nutrition through initiatives such as the Food Farmacy and Café-to-Grow.
“Because FSWVA depends on the government for a portion of its food donations, it can be challenging to procure the fresh food that is a necessary part of a varied, nutritious diet,” explains Pamela Irvine, FSWVA’s President and CEO.
FSWVA launched the Food Farmacy to use food as medicine to manage and prevent chronic illness. Local healthcare partners refer participants who attend six weeks of nutrition education classes; each week they select groceries tailored to their health-related issues at a market set up at FWSVA’s Community Solutions Center, and the Virginia Cooperative Extension hosts on-site cooking demonstrations.
The Community Solutions Center also serves as a meal production hub for the Café-to-Grow food truck, which serves fresh, healthy meals to children in high-risk neighborhoods five days a week. Kids choose between two entrée options, served with fruit, vegetables and milk. The Community Solutions Center also offers a 12-week meal production training program; participants obtain a ServSafe manager’s certificate that allows them to command higher food service wages.
LEAP
Local Environmental Agriculture Project (LEAP) nurtures our local food community by creating a viable economy for farmers and ensuring that locally grown food is accessible and affordable. LEAP operates the Grandin Village and West End farmers markets, which accept and match SNAP-EBT benefits (food stamps), as well as a mobile market which provides fresh food access to Roanoke neighborhoods in need. All stops are open to the public and double SNAP-EBT benefits and double purchases made by WIC and Medicaid recipients.
LEAP works with community partners to establish the mobile market’s schedule, making up to 12 stops weekly, and to offer additional incentives. LEAP partners with Roanoke City senior housing facilities to give low-income residents $5 worth of food in addition to matching their typical $16 monthly SNAP allotment.
In 2020, the need for access to fresh, affordable food only increased; the mobile market continued to operate last winter and has since evolved into a year-round initiative. It has expanded its offering of produce and eggs to include grains, bread and some meat, and seeks to address each micro community’s needs.
“Westside Villages [which houses a lot of] immigrants and refugees who have strong cooking cultures but have limited transportation—the only food store they can walk to nearby is Family Dollar,” explains Maureen McNamara Best, LEAP’s Executive Director. “We started sourcing Homestead Creamery milk and trying to meet their produce needs with what we have access to.”
During COVID, LEAP worked with community organizations to help address food chain disruptions and responded to requests for fresh produce by launching Community Produce Packs. LEAP tapped its network of local farmers to purchase produce at a fair price, packed it up with recipes and resources and distributed it to partners such as Boys & Girls Clubs of SWVA, FSWVA’s Community Solutions Center and The Hope Center.
How You Can Help
- Donate: Monetary donations make a direct impact to providing food for hungry residents. $1 donated to FSWVA provides the equivalent of five healthy meals; purchasing a $15 LEAP Community Produce Pack provides a family with a week’s worth of produce.
- Volunteer: Give back with your time individually or ask your employer about group volunteering. Pack emergency food boxes at FSWVA, serve meals at the Rescue Mission, work a shift on LEAP’s mobile market or FSWVA’s Café-to-Grow, teach a class or provide sweat equity at community gardens.
- Host a Food & Fund Drive: Create a food and fund drive through your employer, church, school or community organization to procure shelf-stable pantry items and monetary donations.
- Advocate: Let elected officials know how important it is to provide these food resource services to those struggling in our community.
Community Gardens
Community gardens cultivate solutions to food access by addressing proximity and affordability to fresh produce, as well as education on how to grow and prepare it. One Valley, an environmental, educational and civil rights organization, supports the neighborhood- and volunteer-led George Washington Carver garden to address food access in Northwest Roanoke.
LEAP has five community garden sites across the city and offers scholarships to offset the cost of plots. Education centered on growing food has been embraced by youth programs, too, including the Gainsboro YMCA, the Boys & Girls Clubs of SWVA and the West End Center for Youth.
Gardens also provide fertile ground for an integrated approach to food education and community building. At Morningside Urban Farm, a community garden in Southeast Roanoke that’s facilitated by Carilion Clinic Community Health and Outreach, farmer Cameron Terry raises produce, leads gardening classes and coordinates volunteer projects. The produce grown here benefits organizations such as Presbyterian Community Center, the Rescue Mission and the Boys & Girls Clubs of SWVA and is also offered to those who attend classes. The robust calendar of free, public classes is overseen by farm coordinator and Carilion Clinic community health educator Angela Charlton, RDN who works with local organizations to offer workshops spanning composting, recycling, nutrition and fitness. Neighborhood residents teach classes, too, like sunset yoga and rock painting.
Morningside Urban Farm will introduce a new series of seasonal produce classes, covering health and nutrition benefits, meal planning tips and cooking demos. It will also collaborate with the Virginia Cooperative Extension on its Farm-to-School video series, spotlighting how seasonal produce grows, its nutritional benefits and approachable cooking demos.
The story above is from our May/June 2021 issue. For more stories, subscribe today or view our FREE digital edition. Thank you for supporting local journalism!