Wilkes County organization fights growing hunger problem

Food insecurity is both an urban and rural problem in North Carolina. 

Roy Jarrard, a longtime volunteer for Samaritan Kitchen in Wilkesboro, says food insecurity in Wilkes County is on the rise. He says six months ago the agency had been averaging about 45 families daily. Now volunteers are routinely providing food to 50 to 55 families.

Jarrard attributes this rise primarily to the loss of industry in the region that he’s seen in his more than 40 years of living in Wilkes County.

“There were a number of sawmills. Most of them are gone now," he says. "Lowe’s Hardware, their corporate office was right here in Wilkesboro. Well, they moved out now. There is not the industrial base that we had. And yet the need is growing.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has identified a food desert in the heart of Wilkes County. The agency defines a rural food desert as a low-income tract with at least 500 people who live more than 10 miles from the nearest supermarket, supercenter or large grocery store.