Monthly News from MANNA FoodBank
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Join the largest food drive in the nation!
STAMP OUT HUNGER
National Assoc. of Letter Carriers Food Drive
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The 27th annual National Association of Letter Carriers food drive,
Stamp Out Hunger
, is coming up on
Saturday, May 11
!
Join thousands of your friends and neighbors in an effort to fill empty plates across Western North Carolina by leaving a bag of nonperishable food donations at your mailbox in time for your local letter carrier to pick up.
Please no glass containers, and if you feel like leaving a note for these wonderful mail carriers who donate their time and energy to this massive annual action to address hunger, it is a welcome addition to their pickup!
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Rallying for Girls in WNC
MANNA Partners with Project Dignity of WNC, Feeding America, and Always®
for a Special Donation to Keep Girls in School
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Traditionally,
MANNA FoodBank’s
inventory flow is almost exclusively food. But when the community lacks access to the most fundamental needs, like groceries, it is more than likely that people lack access to other grocery basics, like toilet paper and personal care items.
Project Dignity of Western North Carolina, Inc
. is a local nonprofit organization working to provide menstrual feminine hygiene products to women and girls in our region who do not otherwise have access. Project Dignity WNC provides thousands of period products every month to girls in Buncombe and Henderson County schools. Not being able to afford period products is a huge issue for women in Western North Carolina, especially when they and their families are already struggling to afford the basics of food and shelter.
Apart from the serious health issue of being forced to use other non-hygienic materials to deal with their monthly period—like old socks, rags, and even old newsprint or plastic bags—lacking access to period products creates social embarrassment and stigma, sidelining girls from the daily school activities that are vital for setting the foundation for their futures. In lengthy research studies, Procter & Gamble (P&G) Always® found “one in five girls in the US have missed school due to lack of period protection.”
“I have had kids come to me saying they need to go home because they’ve started their period and have no supplies,” said Shelly Roeder, a social worker at Erwin High School.
Barbara Morgan, Founder and President of Project Dignity WNC, started the organization in January 2017.
“We dedicated ourselves in the beginning to girls in schools because we knew that trying to stay in school with no feminine products available, combined with the bullying in today’s schools, would limit the odds of these young girls staying in school and graduating.”
After being in the schools for one year, the Project Dignity team received a letter from Matthew Gruebmeyer, Director of the Henderson County Student Services, stating that the schools were witnessing the impact of the products: Girls were staying in school.
A National Donation Comes to WNC
Project Dignity saw a P&G Always ad in the New York Times Sunday edition in August 2018 stating that Always® teamed up with Feeding America, a long-standing partner, on a mission to donate 15 million pads to keep girls in school. Project Dignity started looking for some local Feeding America partners and found out MANNA is a member of Feeding America. Knowing the impact this could have—and having reaching out to P&G and having little success—Morgan and her team connected with Jen Waite, the Food Sourcing Director at MANNA, hoping to get this much-needed product into WNC.
After a few weeks of phone calls and emails, Waite contacted the Project Dignity team with the great news:
They would be receiving a huge donation of 15 pallets of products from Always®!
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20th Annual Blue Jean Ball
FOODSTOCK
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Channel your inner flower child with us at the 20th annual Blue Jean Ball: FOODSTOCK!
Tickets are available while they last, but they are going fast and they ALWAYS sell out, so don't miss your chance to party for a purpose! This year's theme gives a nod to a very special music festival from 1969 but with a MANNA twist, and featuring our own rock stars: the culinary teams from some of our favorite local restaurants! Visit the website to see the information, and to get tickets before they're gone.
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Catawba Brewing Co. Hosts
Zombie Takeover Day
Thursday, May 9, 5:30-7:30 pm
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Catawba Brewing Co. is pleased to announce Zombie Takeover Day, leading up to the upcoming White Zombie 5k, which benefits MANNA FoodBank. On this special pre-registration day on May 9, Catawba will offer a one-day “killer” discount. Individuals may register onsite at the Zombie Takeover party or with an online code to get $5 off the registration. Catawba will donate 3.5 meals per registration before, during, and after Zombie Takeover Day to MANNA!
Zombie Takeover Day
To secure the $5 discount, individuals may visit Catawba’s South Slope tasting room from 5:30-7:30 p.m. on May 9. Party details may be found here. For those who can’t attend the party, they may enter the code “zombie” online
here.
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Feed Someone for a Year...
Table for Three Raffle
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Table for Three is MANNA FoodBank’s partnership with Asheville’s nationally-recognized independent restaurant scene. Enter to win an incredible GRAND PRIZE: Dinner for two at 52 of the Asheville area’s top restaurants! That’s a year’s-worth of dining out.
The best part is that each ticket supports MANNA’s vital work to provide food to WNC families struggling to make ends meet. With every ticket sold, MANNA can provide enough food to feed one person a daily meal… for an entire year. That’s why we’re calling it Table for Three!
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Fight Hunger. Spark Change.
Food Banks Across the Country Partner with Walmart and Sam's Club to Fight Hunger
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One in eight Americans in communities across the U.S. struggle with hunger, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
In Western North Carolina, that is even higher: 1 in 6 people don't know where their next meal is coming from, including 1 in 4 kids. These are our friends, neighbors, coworkers, and our family.
To raise awareness and combat the issue, Walmart, Sam's Club, Feeding America and MANNA FoodBank are teaming up for the annual nationwide
Fight Hunger. Spark Change campaign. Learn how you can give back during this campaign at
https://wm8.walmart.com/Hunger
It's easy to participate: Look for items marked with the Fight Hunger. Spark Change logo when you shop for groceries at Walmart and Sam's Club!
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GIFTS, RECOGNITION + ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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We CAN Do It!
Can Openers for Kids Drive is a Success
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Thank you so much to all who contributed to the can opener for kids drive! Thanks to your donations, we raised
1268 can openers! We have already distributed 675 can openers to schools in our service area and will continue to distribute these until they are gone.
Because of your generosity we are able to help kids across WNC gain better access to the food they receive from MANNA, and help provide what many of us consider "the basics" when it comes to food access.
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Food Lion Feeds
Partners in the Work to End Hunger
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Food Lion continues to work towards a huge goal of helping to provide millions of meals to the people in the 10 states where their grocery stores are located through their initiative called Food Lion Feeds. In our service area, Food Lion has helped with pantry makeovers, food donations, charitable support to food-relief programs, and volunteers to help in the work of addressing hunger for over 100,000 in WNC alone.
This past week, Food Lion hosted their annual Feedy Awards, and recognized food bank partners, vendors and incredible stores and employees for going above and beyond for people who don't know where their next meal will come from.
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With another step toward filling as many empty plates as possible, Food Lion made a surprise gift to 15 food banks for child-feeding program support!
For us, this incredible donation will go towards our beloved
MANNA Packs for Kids backpack program, helping ensure that when we provide a child with a backpack for the weekends away from free school meals, we can continue to provide a weekly backpack for that child for the entire year.
Our deep thanks to Food Lion for their dedicated, ongoing efforts to ensure that people don't have to choose between dinner and rent, or between gas and groceries.
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Food For Kids: Supporting MANNA's Backpack Program
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We are more than thrilled to thank two important partners in their work to address hunger for the 1 in 4 children in Western North Carolina who are facing an empty plate right now.
Thanks to
Pisgah Investments Foundation, Inc., and
Walnut Cove Members Association, we can continue to support the MANNA Packs for Kids program, which serves more than 5,000 kids across WNC every week, by providing a backpack of food on Friday afternoons for kids who are on free lunch, and are most at risk of hunger on the weekends when they are away from the support of the school meal program.
We can't stand the thought of anyone, especially a child, struggling with the physical and mental stress of hunger, and we are proud to thank these supporters for their unwillingness to let children go home to an empty kitchen.
Thanks to these wonderful supporters, more children will have food for the weekends.
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Advocate for those experiencing poverty.
MANNA's mission is to involve, educate, and unite people in the work of ending hunger, and an important part of this mission is advocating for those living in and experiencing the effects of poverty.
As a non-partisan organization, dedicated to sharing information about the issues affecting the people we serve together, MANNA does not endorse political parties or candidates. We simply ask people to work with our elected officials to make legislation that works for us all, and makes our region, our state, and our country stronger from the ground up.
If you are interested in receiving advocacy-related emails from MANNA FoodBank, please click the button below. By clicking here, you are signing up to receive information from MANNA about ways you can use your voice, and actions you can take, to help work towards our vision of a hunger-free Western North Carolina.
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Give. Volunteer. Advocate.
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