I’m in North Carolina visiting my family. When I travel, I like to find local charities to donate to. I learn about the area I’m in in a different way than the normal tourist. When it comes to giving to a Raleigh charity, it feels doubly special since I’m learning more about my hometown and giving back to the area that made me who I am.
Today, I read a story in the The Cary News about a mobile market operated by the Kraft Family YMCA and the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle. It’s like a bookmobile, but with vegetables.
On the first Tuesday of every month, the mobile market pulls up to an elementary school on Fuquay-Varina, a little town outside of Raleigh, for an house and residents can pick free fruits and vegetables. Many of the people in line are relying on the local food banks for assistance and have found the mobile market a great addition.
The mobile market has a wide array of options, including cantaloupe, corn on the cob, pineapple, kiwis, broccoli, lettuce, strawberries, green peppers, and more. Local farmers, grocery stores and businesses donate the food. Other funding for the market is provided by the YMCA’s outreach campaign.
In its first month, in May, close to 200 families showed up for the free food.
This is one of those programs that seems transferrable to almost every community and a very simple solution to help people who are hungry in a healthy and sustainable way.
Today’s $10 goes to the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, whose motto is “We feed. We Teach. We Grow.” It was started in 1989 by two women who simply found the idea of children and men and women going to bed hungry unacceptable. They call what they do “food recovery” as they collect food from restaurants and stores that would otherwise get thrown out. In 2011, they “recovered” more than 7.1 million pounds of food. That’s a lot of cabbage.
June 12: Inter-Faith Food Shuttle
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