www.secondharvestmetrolina.org

Serves: Cherokee, Lancaster, Spartanburg, Union, and York counties

Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina was founded in 1981, as a project of the Charlotte Area Fund. The organization became autonomous in January 1983, and was originally incorporated as Metrolina Food Bank. Within 15 months, the Food Bank was able to qualify for membership in Feeding America, the national food bank network.

Feeding America is recognized as the nation's largest hunger relief organization, comprised of more than 200 food banks and food rescue programs across the United States.

Since late 1996, the Food Bank has added several new programs. The Pee Dee Branch operates in Mt. Gilead and serves agencies in Anson, Stanly and Montgomery counties. The Catawba Branch opened in March 2006 and serves Catawba, Burke and Lincoln County agencies. The Dallas Branch opened in January 2008 and serves Gaston, Cleveland, Rutherford, Lincoln and Cherokee, SC counties. There are 35 Kids Cafe sites in 10 different counties (as of December 2008) serving children each week. We operate 30 Backpack Programs in 9 counties (as of December 2008) that provide children with backpacks full of nutritious foods on weekends and holidays when school meals and Kids Cafe meals are not available. Each year the Mobile Pantry Program conducts approximately 200 mobile pantries which carry an average of 9,000 pounds of food per trip into our most rural areas.

Our Second Helping Program provides boxes full of staple foods each month to homebound seniors in York, Lancaster, Lincoln, Cabarrus, and Union (NC) counties. Our Five a Day Calcium Program provides calcium rich foods and nutritional information to seniors and children in six different counties.