Nancy Gavin (Photos by Olivia Siegel)
Story by Frances Figart
It’s 8:45 a.m. on a Saturday and people are arriving to form a line outside what appears to be a modest home in Asheville’s Kenilworth neighborhood. At 9 a.m., the doors of what is actually a pantry will open and, over the next few hours, some 75 to 80 people will file into the waiting room, register, and proceed to brightly lit aisles and wellstocked shelves.
Volunteer Mike Wurman
They will shop for everything from apples, eggs, yogurt, and milk to toothpaste, toilet paper, and dishwashing liquid. They can even pick up food for their cat—and it’s all for free! The food and supplies are a benefit given directly by Loving Food Resources (LFR) to anyone in Western North Carolina who has been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS or who has been placed under Home Hospice Care.
Some of today’s shoppers are patients, but many are family members shopping for their loved ones. Everyone in the care-giving circle benefits from the self-select food pantry, its offerings unloaded and neatly arranged by volunteers earlier in the week in anticipation of today’s shoppers.
“LFR operated as an all-volunteer agency for 23 years,” said Nancy Gavin, who was hired as the first paid executive director of the nonprofit in June 2015. “Clients are able to shop at the pantry every Saturday morning, making their own choices from the shelves, and each one leaves with a food box weighing approximately 50 pounds.”
LFR partners with MANNA FoodBank and works closely with The Western North Carolina AIDS Project (WNCAP), Western North Carolina Community Health Services (WNCCHS), Care Partners Hospice and other local hospice facilities to offer the service. In just the past year, LFR provided more than 200,000 pounds of food, including 44,000 pounds of fresh produce. There were approximately 5,000 client visits to the pantry and almost 7,000 volunteer hours served.
“I knew the three founders of LFR who were persons living with HIV/AIDS,” says current board president Barbara Bell, who has been with LFR almost since its inception. “They were driven and determined that no one should have to make the choice between paying for medications and buying food.” The program was expanded to include anyone in Home Hospice Care with any condition in the late 1990s.
That LFR was able to succeed as a volunteer-run operation for so long is a testament to the passion and dedication of long-term volunteers like Barbara, immediate past president and 16-year volunteer Mike Stevenson, and Ellen Anastos, who developed the organization’s administrative system.
“We rely on more than 150 regular volunteers to make sure food is sorted, shelves are stocked, boxes are packed and delivered, and our clients served,” says Nancy, who moved with her husband from Baltimore, Maryland, to Black Mountain in January 2015. She is directing new initiatives such as Loving Gardens, which will provide clients with containers, soil, and vegetable seeds so they can grow their own fresh vegetables and another program to encourage healthier food choices by providing recipes, cooking demonstrations, and samples of healthy dishes.
Due to transportation issues, it is mainly Buncombe County residents who shop on Saturdays. Currently, WNCAP volunteers deliver one prepacked box of food each month to clients in 16 of the other 17 Western North Carolina counties. The exception is Henderson County where People Being Jesus serves as a drop site for LFR’s clients. “Our goal is to develop additional drop sites in outlying counties so they can receive food more frequently,” says Nancy.
Back in the waiting room, a poster on the community bulletin board shares how clients recently described their experiences at LFR in just three words. Among the responses: love, compassion, nutrition; consistent, resilient, surprising; welcoming, conscientious, needed; scary, unpredictable, blessing; lifeline, nonjudgmental, dignity-enhancing.
LFR will celebrate its 25th anniversary at an Affair in White, a fundraiser at the Renaissance Asheville Hotel June 25 from 7–10 p.m. The organization is seeking corporate sponsors and donations for live and silent auctions. To get involved with the fundraiser or to volunteer, contact ngavin@lovingfood.org. Learn more at lovingfood.org.
