NC food pantry aims to improve access to healthy food in rural areas - WBTV

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) - When it comes to grocery shopping, many of us are lucky and it just comes down to a matter of preference - a choice - you just like one store over the other.

It could be prices, selection or customer service.

Some people don’t have that luxury and their choice comes down to who will accept their form of payment - and sometimes there aren’t a lot of options.

38 million people rely on SNAP benefits for their groceries. For some of them, there isn’t a single grocery store in their entire county that accepts them.

When looking at the cost of food in places without a grocery store, there’s a sizeable gap. For example, a dozen eggs was around $2.50 at a rural gas station. A Walmart in a nearby county carried the same thing and it was a dollar cheaper.

About 27,000 people live in Ashe County, North Carolina, and a little more than 14 percent of them live in poverty, with grocery stores not always close by.

A group of people are finding a solution - providing free food for people who are in need and meeting them where they are in Ashe County.

Here’s how Ashe Food Pantry is bridging the great health divide.

Ashe Food Pantry’s Michael Sexton explained why Ashe County is in need when it comes to food accessibility in rural areas.

“Ashe County has several areas that are called pockets of poverty, or also they’re known as food deserts. And that’s because the nearest grocery store is more than eight to 10 miles away,” Sexton said. “A food desert is basically an area where there’s no grocery store that’s convenient for the citizens or the residents to drive to.”

“Today, we had the opportunity of getting 20 pallets of CFAP, That’s the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program boxes that started last May. So we gave every family two of the 35 pound boxes of produce. Plus we gave them a food box of staple items, and this was through our drive-thru,” Sexton said.

Ashe Food Pantry’s Jennifer Treski talked about how some residents are just not comfortable or able to always get to food pantry.

“And some of our older folks are just aren’t comfortable coming down to the main pantry. They’re proud people, and if we can meet them where they are in their community. I just think it is so so important,” Treski said.

Sexton also talked about the lack of reliable transportation and the sense of pride some of the residents have.

“It’s really hard for people in the rural areas to to come out if they don’t have reliable transportation. That’s why we developed a mobile pantry concept. And by taking it to them, we accomplish helping our neighbors who don’t have reliable transportation to get to the pantry here or to get to a grocery store here,” Sexton said. “We also knocked down some walls of what we call here, ‘mountain pride.’ A lot of these people grew up growing their own food, they worked all their life. And then as they got older, they could not work any longer. They have arthritis in their hands. They can’t grow their gardens, they can’t can food like they used to.”

“To be able to support our community during that really rough 14 months that we hopefully are about to get through. I mean it’s just been critical for the people of this county,” Treski said. “Meeting them where they are, we’ve built such a sense of community with with those people. Now they know that we’re part of their community, we’ve met them where they are, we’re part of their community and that’s just crucial.”

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