The Food Bank Gardening, Production and Nutrition Specialist

The Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina (the Food Bank) is a non-profit organization that has provided food for our friends and neighbors facing hunger in 34 counties in central and Eastern North Carolina for over 40 years and is a member of Feeding America. The Food Bank ranks 15 nationally in terms of total food distributed and first in North Carolina. The Food Bank’s food distribution and child nutrition programs are based on national models. The Food Bank works every day to provide food for people in need while building solutions to end hunger in local communities. The ultimate goal of the VISTA assignment with the Food Bank is to help build a program of community outreach to encourage and recruit community members and families to attend educational programming around urban gardening, agriculture, food production and nutrition. This programming aims to assist low-income families to subsidize their food resources, understand the importance of fresh produce, from a nutritional perspective and encourage physical activity. It is anticipated that, if proof of concept can be shown, that the Food Bank would try to obtain funding for additional educational positions in the Nutrition Education team to carry out any increased duties after the end of the assignment. The goal of the VISTA is to recruit a minimum of 4 cohorts of 6-10 individuals in the first year of programming, with pre and post surveying to establish the impact of the program’s provision on food insecurity.