Click on the above photo for a slideshow of the Second Harvest Food Bank.
Photo by the Winston-Salem Journal.

July 31, 2009 Winston-Salem Journal
Bare Shelves: Second Harvest Food Bank is hit with the worst crisis in its 28-year history

"Last week for the first time in its 28-year history, the Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina ran out of food....Each of the 18 counties that the food bank serves has more than 10 percent unemployment, Fitzgerald said, and some of the counties with the highest unemployment rates are in the food bank's service area. Last year, partner agencies served about 150,000 people. So far this year, the agencies have served 250,000 people.

Food drives, which account for about 20 percent of the food bank's supplies, traditionally drop off in summer, Fitzgerald said. "You put all of that together and demand is skyrocketing, supply dwindles and we don't have any product," he said."

Second Harvest feeds the counties almost exactly within the span of Salem Presbytery, as you can see from the map below.
Please get your congregation involved and help fill the shelves of your local food banks or pantries.  Collect canned goods and non-perishable food items and drop them off at participating food banks and pantries.

The Salem Presbytery staff is doing a weekly donation to Second Harvest. We encourage your congregations to do the same. Desperate times are calling for desperate measures.

 

Click here for more information on how to help by reading Bryan McFarland's article "A Summer of Need"

Visit Second Harvest's Website by clicking on the image above.