What we eat plays a big role in overall health. As grocery store prices increase, affording fresh, healthy food has become harder for some families. 

For families facing food insecurity, especially in rural North Carolina, access to healthy options can be limited. 

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The Inter-Faith Food Shuttle and the Family Life Center Garden in Conetoe received a big boost to help tackle food insecurity at the source.

A $260,000 grant from Food Lion and Ahold Delhaize USA is helping expand that work through the Rural Roots Initiative. 

Ron Pringle, Inter-Faith Food Shuttle president and CEO, says the funding will be used to build a fully scaled production kitchen, raised garden beds, and a new high tunnel. The organization will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Sept. 9.

“They'll be preparing nutritional meals that address various health conditions,” Pringle said. “They are going to be serving many of their seniors in the surrounding area.”

The Conetoe location serves about 100 families a week, according to the Food Shuttle. The high tunnel will help extend the growing season for various crops. 

Pringle added, “It’s going to give them an opportunity to grow their own seedlings so these farmers don’t have to drive to Virginia and purchase these items anymore.”

Reverend Richard Joyner, founder and coordinator of the Conetoe Family Life Center, said the connection between food and health has been at the center of the organization's work for two decades. 

“People come, and they harvest,” Joyner said. “Twenty years ago we were having extreme deaths, premature deaths, and we did a research piece really looking at causes. The Brody School of Medicine was a part of that process and identified we did not have access to fresh, affordable vegetables in our community. Because of that, chronic disease was escalating.”

Inter-Faith Food Shuttle programs include agricultural and nutrition education designed to give families the knowledge and resources to produce and prepare healthy food themselves.

The organization calls its approach “Feed, Teach and Grow,” with programs ranging from school pantries and senior nutrition services to agricultural education and culinary workforce development.

For Joyner, that work is also about making healthy food part of everyday life in the communities the farm serves.

“We do a lot of health education. We do a lot of health screenings, not just here, but we do them all around Eastern North Carolina with ECU Health,” Joyner said. 

The Family Life Center works with churches to host farmers markets, provide health education, and teach people how to prepare the food they take home in healthier ways.

The hope is that by providing access to fresh food alongside education, families have more tools to make healthy choices long after they leave the farm.

The funds will also help harvests at the Conetoe Family Life Center Garden have an even greater reach. The garden is a feeder farm for more than 30 smaller backyard gardens and 70 churches serving communities throughout eastern North Carolina. 

“In essence, this funding is providing the fishing rod and the bait, and everything that you need to fish,” Pringle said. 

The effort is also supported by volunteers, including Food Lion employees like store manager Matthew Vandiford. 

“Getting out and seeing customers, and seeing people that need help, it puts a name to a face for Food Lion,” Vandiford said. “It also kind of brings us tighter into the community as not just a grocery store, but you know we live here too.”

For Joyner, the impact of the farm goes beyond what the families take home. He called the resources “liberating” and "therapeutic" for families to have access to.

“What you see here is abundance,” Joyner said.

With the new investment, the organizations hope to make more fresh food and the resources to produce it available to families across eastern North Carolina.