Food Ministry dishes out direct solution to hunger in the High Country, America

by MEGAN NORTHCOTE
Intern Lifestyles Reporter  

For some reason, canned food drives always seem to happen only around the holidays.

Maybe it’s because the holiday season has traditionally been thought of as a time of giving.

Or perhaps it’s because people begin thinking of their own families’ big turkey dinners and wish for those less fortunate to be able to experience the same magical grandeur of the holidays.

However, According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the number of people starving in the world has exceeded one billion.  At this rate, the number starving will exceed nine billion by the year 2050.

Clearly, worldwide hunger and starvation is not a seasonal issue.

Finally the High Country area has stepped up to the plate to address the needs of the hungry every month of the year.

Two years ago, Angel Food Ministries established a host site through Boone United Methodist Church.

Ever since then, Angel Food Ministries has grown to serve the community through a total of four other churches including: Brushy Fork Baptist Church, Laurel Springs Baptist Church, Proffitts Grove Baptist Church and Bald Mountain Baptist Church.

Originating in 1994, Joe and Linda Wingo established Angel Food Ministries in Monroe, Ga. as a way of providing food relief to 34 struggling families affected by industrial plant closings.

Since then, this non-profit, nondenominational organization has grown to serve 35 different states, averaging 500,000 families each month.

Locally, the churches collect food orders once a month and rely on volunteer staff to help package and distribute the boxes of food to the needy.

Louise Harris, coordinator for Boone United Methodist’s program, partners with the Wesley Foundation Campus Ministries to help with food packaging and distribution.

Fruit and vegetable boxes and signature boxes complete with a Thanksgiving Day meal and chicken are the most popular food assortments sold.

All boxes are $30 with $1 of the proceeds going back to the church, enabling the church to use the money to buy more boxes for those in need.

Last month, the Boone United Methodist location sold and distributed 109 boxes.

The most rewarding aspect about volunteering with this program, I think, is not just knowing that hungry people in the Boone area are being fed, but actually handing them the food yourself and watching grateful smiles spread across the recipients’  faces.

I feel one of the primary causes of community service apathy in Boone and elsewhere is that people are overwhelmed by large numbers of people in need, whether it’s the hungry, the homeless or the handicapped, and as a result, feel that their efforts to reach out to other people in the community would be rendered virtually inconsequential to the larger problem at hand.

Seeing that you helped directly feed over 100 individuals or families in the local Boone area each month provides greater incentive and motivation for you to continue to help the community.

Additionally, Angel Food Ministries provides interdialogue within the community.

For the hungry, knowing that they have a place to turn for food reduces crime rates as they are much less likely to rob stores to obtain the food they need.

Volunteers increase their awareness of the problems their local area faces and gain better insight of possible solutions.

And the organizers of the Angel Food Ministries as a whole advocate for addressing hunger problems on a local level as well as helping to reduce the growing statistic of over one billion starving people in the world.

Hunger is not a problem that can be addressed by the individual suffering alone.

Nor can it be addressed on a seasonal basis.

It is a much larger problem that involves a much larger network of concerned community members willing to bond together to reduce hunger in the High Country one box of food and one volunteer at a time.

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