High Country Magazine - December 2020

Page 33

Watauga County Food Pantries Are Busy

Driver of the Second Harvest Food Bank truck brings in a pallet of food.

insecurity, so we have a bigger issue.” Across North Carolina, 1 in 5 children go to bed hungry. In Watauga County, 1 in 4 children do not get enough to eat on a regular basis. For children of single parents, that number is 1 in 3. Hospitality House is just one agency in the High Country that has a food pantry program to help individuals and families in difficult situations. Another

Hunger and Health Coalition volunteer wheels out a box of food for clients since they are not allowed to go inside due to COVID-19.

one is the Hunger and Health Coalition, which is located next to Hospitality House. Carter said people will ask him, ‘Are you duplicating services? Why don’t you partner together?’ “They don’t realize that we partner together on so much stuff, and the bottom line is there is so much hunger here. We need more food pantries, not less. We’re giving it out as fast as

Second Harvest truck full of food.

it comes in,” Carter said. “And it’s just been exacerbated extremely with COVID-19. The amount of new people that we have that have never been here before just skyrocketed.” Hospitality House and the Hunger and Health Coalition along with other local food pantries in the High Country such as Casting Bread, Greenway Baptist Church, Blowing Rock CARES and more have all been working toward the

As food is unloaded, volunteers work to put the food in its appropriate place. December 2020

High Country Magazine

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