Local pantry seeks funding to continue feeding those in need
Robbinsville – Grace Place serves 9-out-of-10 people who are experiencing food insecurity in Graham County, but despite the important service it provides, Grace Place itself experiences its own insecurity in the form of funding.
“The past two years have been especially challenging for many, us included, but with the help of this community we have been able to maintain and even grow,” Michelle Shiplet, Grace Place director, said in a letter to the Robbinsville Board of Aldermen.
Funding has come from grants, as well as contributions from Graham County, the Town of Robbinsville, Liberty Missionary Church, Hosanna Baptist Church, Robbinsville United Methodist Church, and the Nantahala Health Foundation, Shiplet said.
Funding requires constant attention to maintain services, and grants have helped pay for expanded services.
Grace Place is asking for $7,500 from the Town of Robbinsville and $15,000 from Graham County to help fund the food bank and soup kitchen at its location behind Liberty Missional Church at 300 Five Point Road. The town and county are in the process of formulating their spending plans for the coming fiscal year, and funding for Grace Place will be discussed during those processes.
Spiking food costs have made it harder for Grace Place to continue fulfilling its food services.
Grace Place, also known as Five Point Center, was founded in 2018 by Liberty Missionary Church. It expanded food bank services after Graham County Emergency Foodbank closed in late 2020 and then took on more when Graham Fellowship Food Distribution closed its food distribution service in September 2021.
As a result, Grace Place provides more than 91 percent of the county’s food insecurity services.
By March, Grace Place had distributed 22,401 emergency food boxes and, through its partnership with MANNA (Mountain Area Nutritional Needs Alliance) Foodbank, 3,100 The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) boxes. From 2020 through March 2022, Grace Place has fed the equivalent of 77,783 people through these programs.
Grace Place had also prepared and distributed 59,635 ready-to-eat meals in Graham County as of early March.
A typical food box contains cereal, dairy, protein, produce, bread and eggs when available, and provides five days of food for a family of four, Shiplet said.
Grace Place will also be partnering with Impact Health to participate in providing services for Medicaid recipients. This will enable it to provide specialized food boxes to meet individual dietary needs. Graham County is one of the Top 10 counties in North Carolina for food insecurity, with about 19 percent of Graham County residents facing challenges in getting enough to eat, according to Shiplet.
“Our food insecurity rate is 61.5 percent higher than the national average,” Shiplet wrote in a letter to Robbinsville aldermen. “The rate for our county’s children is 24.4 percent, which is 52.1 percent higher than the national average. Seventy-three percent of our children qualify for free or reduced (cost) meals at school.”
Grace Place has hired two part-time workers and raised funds to build a new pantry, which opened in February. Shiplet said the next goal is to build a commercial-grade kitchen using Community Development Block Grant funding it has secured.
Grace Place has been using a residential-grade kitchen located in the church. Once completed, the new kitchen will be certified community kitchen and will be available for cottage industries and for rental use in addition to preparing meals for its weekly meal program.
Grace Place has also built an Internet resource center available for local students, businesses and for helping clients with their needs.