­­ Karin Nichols – Cashier Sparta Customer Center

In conjunction with National Cooperative Month, SkyLine organized its first systemwide food drive initiative last fall to help local efforts to fight hunger, as one in six adults and one in four children across the region lack access to sufficient food to meet their nutritional needs.

“When we suggested a breakfast food drive to area food pantries, they told us that these items were actually among the most needed but in shortest supply on their shelves,” said SkyLine PR Administrator Karen Powell. “This affirmed for us that breakfast needed to be our focus.”

When the “Rise & Shine” food drive began, response was immediate. Sparta Cashier Karin Nichols, who sees customers regularly, viewed her experience with the project as nothing but positive. “Our customers were so very accepting and excited about helping our neighbors. One story I shared with customers involved a person in the community that no one would have ever seen as needing assistance.

She came in, asked for two of the “Rise & Shine” totes and relayed her story of how she had lost her job about five months prior and for the first time in her life, was unable to make ends meet. She visited Solid Rock Food Closet and was so very grateful that it had been there for her. Now back on her feet and wanting to ‘pay it forward,’ she filled those totes and encouraged others to participate.” Nichols followed suit by sharing with other customers this person’s story of how it could be ‘one of us next,’ and people responded. “Man, did they respond.”

In Alleghany, where the childhood food insecurity rate of 28.6 percent exceeds that of adults, the project supported Solid Rock Food Closet, one of three outreach programs of the Alleghany County Ministerium. Director David Carpenter, an Alleghany native who spent 45 years in industry management with Hanes, Dr. Grabow and Carolina Narrow, said there’s never been a place where he’s lived or worked that had more caring people than right here. “So many of the people working in industry earned barely over minimum wage, but they worked hard — many never missed a day, and managed to buy homes and raise their families. Now they rely on Social Security but still, they give.”

Grace Community Church grew potatoes for the food closet, but as older church members struggled to keep it going, Evelyn Hash and her brother R.C. Mitchell donated the use of family land downtown for the same purpose. Now, “hoe down” events invite volunteers to nurture the patch of 25 bushels of potatoes set to be harvested this fall. Solid Rock’s backpack
program is active year-round to provide kid-friendly meals to around 400 children.

Coordinator Teresa March says, “We’ve been able to coordinate with the schools to send food home with the children on weekends, but when the school year ended and transportation became an issue, we added a ‘Meals on Wheels’ type program that delivers food to the children at their homes in the summer months.”

“Rise & Shine” also supported four other area pantries: Ashe Outreach Ministries, Reaching Avery Ministry, Watauga’s Hunger and Health Coalition and the Second Harvest Food Bank’s Northeast Tennessee Mobile Pantry. Systemwide, more than 1,300 food items were collected, along with $500 in cash donations.

The seventh guiding principle of cooperatives is “Concern for Community.” For Nichols, this demonstrated just that. “It was a joy as well as an exercise in humility to participate.”