Food Insecurity in North Carolina
The reality is that 41 million people are food insecure in our country, including 15 percent of people living in North Carolina. It is higher in northeast North Carolina where 16 percent of the population lives with Food Insecurity.
That means 43,000 people in northeast North Carolina towns and neighborhoods do not have regular access to enough food for a healthy, active life.
Who Does Hunger Affect?
For children, the number is even higher: 23 percent of children face hunger right here in Bertie, Beaufort, Camden, Chowan, Currituck, Dare, Gates, Hertford, Hyde, Martin, Northampton, Pasquotank, Perquimans, Tyrrell, Washington —that is 1 in 4 children.
Each of those 43,000 is worried about having enough to eat. It might be the clerk who bags your groceries or the father down the street whose company cut his pay.
Perhaps it is your elderly neighbor whose fixed income doesn’t come anywhere close to covering the cost of her medications or the child in your daughter’s class who has trouble paying attention to the lessons. Our clients are children, families, veterans, students, senior citizens, single parents, the unemployed, and the underemployed—hunger can affect anyone.
How We Fight Food Insecurity in Northeast NC
At the Food Bank of the Albemarle, we believe the prevalence of hunger in our community is unacceptable. We have the expertise to fight food insecurity in northeast North Carolina, but we cannot do it alone.
It is only through sophisticated and innovative partnerships that we can solve these problems and continue to serve the hungry families that rely on our services every day. When all children have enough nutritious food to grow and learn and when everyone has access to the food they need to stay healthy, will we ensure a stronger future for North Carolina.
Our Partners in Fighting Hunger
By working together will we make that possible. The Food Bank of the Albemarle is proud to be a member of the nationwide Feeding America network of 200 food banks leading the fight against hunger in the United States.
We are members of a statewide association of Feeding America Food Banks collaborating on initiatives that address hunger in all 100 counties in North Carolina. Our membership with Feeding America affords us access to some of the best data and research reports regarding domestic hunger. One such report is Hunger in America and the other is Map the Meal Gap report.
Hunger in America
This study of hunger has been conducted on a quadrennial cycle since 1993. The previous publication was Hunger in America 2010. The most recent iteration of the study, Hunger in America 2014, was released in August 2014 and revealed that annually, 46.5 million people are reached by the Feeding America network.
HIA 2014 is based on more than 60,000 client and 32,000 agency surveys, capturing detailed information about who is in need of charitable food assistance and their circumstances, which, in turn, helps charitable feeding organizations develop programs that best support people in need.
Map the Meal Gap
The results also better inform the public policy discourse so that federal nutrition programs can better serve those in need. Map the Meal Gap Report provides a detailed assessment of food insecurity gap and the estimated food cost necessary to close the meal gap.
We believe that no person should sacrifice food for basic necessities such as shelter, heat, or medicine consequently we will aggressively work to bring enough food into northeast North Carolina to close the meal gap.
Find Out More ABout map the Meal GapHunger in Our Communities
Download our data sheets for a summary of Food Bank of the Albemarle statistics.
