By NANCY MCLAUGHLIN, News & Record
GREENSBORO, NC (AP) – The team gathered around a table on a Sunday morning in early 2020 as coronavirus cases across the country began to dominate national news.
The country was halting and Eric Aft, CEO of Northwest North Carolina’s Second Harvest Food Bank, knew the hunger problem was sure to get worse. Second Harvest is one of Feeding America’s nine regional food distribution operators across the state.
At the time, the Winston-Salem-based operation, which covers an area of 18 counties including Guilford, had several projects on the table. The agency transfers tons of donated food to local nonprofits that help the hungry, ranging from the Greensboro City Department to local college pantries.
Aft then asked Jim and Marianne Bennett, Greensboro supporters who were working on a popular culinary arts training program, to be the public face of a fundraising campaign to open a satellite office in Greensboro.
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It would mean raising money during a pandemic.
“The need was right in front of you,” said Marianne Bennett. “It was undeniable. “
The 10,650 square foot distribution center with the Second Harvest logo that now sits in northeast Greensboro has 2,200 square feet of wall-lining freezer / cooler storage space that will supply partner agencies ranging from custody – community eating, kitchens and shelters. Agencies can stop at a loading dock at the back of the building to pick up orders set aside on pallets.
The agency intentionally chose to base its operations in a location in one of the city’s food deserts – so named because residents living in those areas have limited access to fresh fruit and produce.
It would take a team effort, but more importantly, according to Aft and others, catching the attention of townspeople who were unaware that 40% of the food distributed by Second Harvest is for non-profit organizations. profit and to the Greensboro and High Point agencies that help put food on the dining room tables.
The group ended up raising nearly $ 2.5 million.
“If a friend in Greensboro called you, it’s an easier story to listen to,” said Kevin Gray of the Bennetts’ Weaver Foundation, “than someone you don’t know.”
The Bennetts have often been that friend of Greensboro, although they prefer to be behind the scenes.
Years ago, when Marianne Bennett, a member of Art Quest, the educational arm of the Green Hill Center in the downtown Greensboro Cultural Center building, discovered that a folk art program for non- members was going to close, she went to see her friends.
Art Quest opened its doors to non-members on Wednesday evenings so parents can come and create with their children. On these nights, anyone interested in art could take a child there to paint, sculpt, draw, dress or play.
At the time, a sluggish economy forced Art Quest to cut its budget.
The director of Art Quest did not want to remove the free Family Night. What she needed was at least $ 10,000 to fund the program for 52 weeks. Then-director Mary Young shared her money problems with Marianne Bennett.
Bennett started with the women at his New Irving Park Book Club. She asked each of these women to donate and find nine other women willing to give.
Bennett and his committee of friends quickly raised $ 12,000 – enough to keep going.
Greensboro has always been a generous place, said Marianne Bennett.
Greensboro had also been here before.
In late 2008, the president of United Way of Greater Greensboro received a call from a worried employer who suggested that the nonprofit make an urgent and timely public appeal for money to compensate. the increased burden on emergency aid agencies.
Homeless shelters were overwhelmed after an early onset of extremely cold weather and the near collapse of the banking and real estate markets, which tipped the scales for those barely making it.
Major Paul Egan, then commander of the Salvation Army Greensboro during what would come to be known as the Great Recession, coined the term “economic hurricane”.
Some of those people on the verge of homelessness, emergency aid workers discovered, just needed help paying their electricity bills to stay at home.
From the first phone call to deployment, it took a total of 10 days and raised over $ 500,000, but also spawned the winter emergency shelters set up seasonally in local churches and organizations across the country. non-profit.
Because of the coronavirus, the whole country was now suffering from a shaken economy leading to a loss of wages of people already at a wage of not being able to pay their bills, but also of people who had never had to ask for help. previously and were on emergency helplines in places like the Urban Ministry.
“The Greensboro community has always been incredibly generous, especially when individuals understand the need and how their involvement can make a difference in that need,” said Aft.
Collectively, programs working with Second Harvest obtain from them over 80% of the food they provide to people in their communities.
For Second Harvest’s fiscal year, which ended June 30, 2020, that equated to 10.8 million pounds of food – or 8.4 million meals – in Guilford County alone.
Second Harvest and its Everyone Deserves to Eat campaign is a coordinated response to hunger.
Most households receiving help from the group report having at least one person employed at some point in the past year – many having worked two or three part-time jobs without health insurance. The overwhelming majority often say they have to choose between paying for food and medical care.
As the pandemic has pushed back the opening schedule, the agency has been looking to expand for years.
With a location in Greensboro, local agencies and others stretching as far as Caswell County will not have to send volunteers and others to Winston-Salem to collect food for distribution. Distance prevented some from being able to pick up produce and other perishable items more frequently that they would also have to figure out how to store when they could have one or two refrigerators.
The Bennett’s got involved in Second Harvest through a friend and fell in love with another project for Greensboro.
Marianne Bennett has become excited about the agency’s partnership between Providence Kitchen Culinary School and Forsyth Technical Community College, which focuses on people who have barriers to employment, such as criminal records.
“It was giving them these tools that enabled them to get skilled jobs,” said Marianne Bennett.
That was about two years ago.
“I was like, ‘Oh my God, this might work for Greensboro,’” she recalls.
“They said they had been trying to get into Greensboro for a long time,” said Marianne Bennett. “We thought that might be the time.”
Michelle Gethers-Clark and Franklin McCain of United Way of Greater Greensboro had advocated for training partnerships that tackle the root of poverty, which they had focused their work on. Second Harvest also had a supporter in Greensboro, Mayor Nancy Vaughan.
“Back then we needed skilled culinary workers and that was a way to lift people out of poverty,” said Marianne Bennett. “It seemed like a wonderful opportunity. “
And then the pandemic struck.
Restaurants were closing as part of an economy that was closing and laying off or reducing employee hours.
“The leadership of Second Harvest is so fantastic,” said Marianne Bennett. “They said, ‘Look, that’s not what we need now. Let’s hear what Greensboro needs.
The Renaissance Boutiques distribution center on Phillips Avenue not only offers space for non-perishable foods, but also a cold store.
“They said we believe in it and we want it to happen quickly,” she recalls.
As she had done with the Art Quest fundraiser, Marianne Bennett asked friends and asked them to ask their friends. They spread the gospel of the second harvest.
They searched for individuals, companies and foundations. And Aft and his team wrote grants. They also brought in other partners.
The team’s effort raised around $ 2.5 million and renovated the existing space owned by the Self-Help Credit Union in a band of businesses.
“It was amazing how people said, ‘Oh yeah, I want to be a part of that,” said Marianne Bennett. “When we asked people for money, they often gave us double. couldn’t believe it.
Fundraising is underway to stay there and for future projects including the delayed culinary training partnership.
The distribution center has also opened a nutrition education center in the building as part of its outreach activities in the region which will also include classes for the community on healthy eating and food preparation. Neighbors include Cone Health’s Renaissance Family Medicine Clinic, GuilfordWorks Workforce Development Agency, and the town’s McGirt-Horton Library branch. They also went door to door in the neighborhood looking for ways to be more present.
“It came from a difficult place,” said Marianne Bennett of the circumstances that prompted it, “but it will make life better for years and years to come.”
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