Heroes for Hunger Highlights Spring 2021

We Are Growing! The Board of Directors of A Simple Gesture (ASG) proudly announces that the Greensboro office will now serve as the National Headquarters for ASG. This is an extremely exciting opportunity to help other communities around the United States start their own ASG chapters. With this announcement comes equally exciting news about the promotions of our leadership team and new staff. Leslie Isakoff: President & COO of ASG Murphy Sullivan: Vice President & Executive Director of ASG Karen Brudnak-Slate: Outreach Coordinator for High Point To read the full press release click HERE.

Food Partner Update For six years, A Simple Gesture has been honored to support Out of the Garden Project. We have watched them grow from supporting school backpack programs to adding mobile markets to serving food deserts and expanding their reach in multiple other ways.  One of our values at A Simple Gesture is that each of our partner pantries is in close communication when they need extra help, or if they are not using the food as quickly as we are bringing it. Out of the Garden has told us that they have begun to focus more on fresh food and are not using the food we provide as much. They have asked us to give the food allocated to them to other pantries.

We are excited to invest the food in new programs at BackPack Beginnings and Second Harvest. BackPack Beginnings is expanding its services, not only to make sure that every school and Head Start has the food they need but also to serve pediatrician offices with food boxes and infant kits. Pre-natal nutrition is vitally important to good birth outcomes and healthy birth weight and serving children ages 0-5 years has always been an aspiration. Thank you to Out of the Garden for partnering with us for 6 years!

Excited About Our New Partnership! Second Harvest is opening a distribution center in Greensboro. The center will be located at Renaissance Plaza on Phillips Ave. Second Harvest will serve over 100 pantries in Guilford County. A Simple Gesture is thrilled to work together to get donated food to pantries that desperately need it.

Watch for Us at the HIGH POINT FARMERS MARKET A Simple Gesture is partnering with the High Point Farmers Market to spread the word about how easy it is to become a green bag donor. Starting April 17 the market runs on Saturday mornings from 8:30-1:00 and is located at the High Point Public Library. Come by to say hello and to stock up on local fresh produce, seasonal plants and herbs, and handmade crafts. We're grateful to the library and the farmers market for allowing us to use this space! Come out and join us!

The Show Goes On! With a theme of Dances for a Pandemic, Hope Fest 4 Hunger became a virtual event this year--and a very successful one. Through the hard work and dedication of First Lutheran Church and so many fantastic sponsors, dance groups celebrating African, Cambodian, Hindu, Irish, Latino, and Native American culture delighted the online audience with their incredible skill. The event raised over $22,500 for A Simple Gesture and Greensboro Urban Ministry to help end hunger. Thanks to the host, the sponsors, the dancers, and everyone who tuned in! It's not too late to see the show! Watch it at hopefest4hunger.org.

Stop Food Waste Day is April 28

Ugly and Delicious! Spring is here! And soon we will be picking strawberries. If you get to pick your own this season, don't forget ones that look like this. You won't see them at the grocery store because they are too "ugly". But they're still delicious! Stop Food Waste Day is April 28th; simple ideas like utilizing "ugly" produce is a way you can support our Earth and the resources it produces for all of us.

Watch Our Next Facebook Event on Thursday, April 22nd! Earth Day is the perfect day to focus on food waste. Tune in to our latest Facebook Live event focusing on the challenge of food waste. RePurpose's Laura Oxner will join A Simple Gesture President & COO Leslie Isakoff and A Simple Gesture Board Member Tom Ricciardi to share food waste statistics, ideas for how you can help, and updates on the food recovery work RePurpose is doing to cut waste. Feeding is always better than wasting! Tune in for the event on Earth Day, Thursday, April 22.

Numbers to Know In 2019, 19.9% of Guilford County residents had an income below the poverty level (the poverty level across North Carolina is 13.6%). North Carolina is one of the top ten states for child food insecurity. Pre-pandemic, NC children were the most at risk for food insecurity. One in five were food insecure. Black and Latinx households were more than twice as likely to be food insecure than whites. The Greensboro/High Point metropolitan area has MORE food deserts than anywhere in the United States (26 food deserts).  Source: NC State University, NC Child Hunger Leaders Conference 2021

Mother's Day Is on the Way! Honor mom with an extra-thoughtful gift. We have a few suggestions! Local artisan Jamie Danis is selling handmade, hardwood trivets to support ASG. A 7"x7" is $12 and a 7"x14" is $18. 100% of the purchase price is donated! Contact Jamie at designsbyjamiedanis@gmail.com. Another local artist donating their immense talent is painter Sandra Cates, who specializes in pet portraits. (Mom may love you, but she adores Fluffy!) The cost is $125 for an 8 x 10 gallery canvas in oil paint. You'll need to provide a clear photo of the pet showing his/her eyes. Contact Sandra at sandra.cates@icloud.com.  A Simple Gesture Honor Cards will make mom smile. Donate $25 or more and ASG will mail mom a Food Is Love card to let her know about the donation in her honor. Food really is love! Click here to learn more.

What Comes to Mind When You Think of A Simple Gesture? Here's what some of our volunteers said.....

How Can I Help? Please visit our website at www.heroesforhunger.org or call (336) 547-7000.