The Carolinas Food Industry Council (CFIC) has donated $50,000 to Manna FoodBank in Asheville, North Carolina. This donation comes at a crucial time as Western North Carolina continues to recover from the devastation of Hurricane Helene.
Lindsey Kueffner, CFIC’s executive director, presented the check to Manna FoodBank CEO Claire Neal and Chief Development Officer Mary Nesbitt during a Dec. 10 meeting at the Manna facility.
As the organization serving the retail and wholesale food industries in North and South Carolina, combatting food insecurity by supporting the food banks in the Carolinas has long been a focus for CFIC. Through its foundation, the Retail Consumer Alliance, CFIC has made annual donations of $50,000 for several years and, in total, has donated more than $800,000 to Feeding the Carolinas to be distributed through its network of 10 Feeding America food banks serving North and South Carolina.
However, after having made its annual donation in 2024, the CFIC Board of Directors recognized the increased need in Western North Carolina and, in particular, for Manna FoodBank. In the wake of Hurricane Helene, Manna’s facility was destroyed. On Sept. 27, the organization lost all of its warehouse food and equipment, including computers and office equipment, as well as forklifts and refrigeration and freezer units. With resilience and the help of the network it had built, Manna was back to distributing food, water and supplies by the morning of Sept. 30. As quickly as possible, it began working with its partner agencies across Western North Carolina delivering food, water and supplies to agencies throughout the region.
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Manna FoodBank has moved its operations into an empty FedEx facility near the Asheville airport, but the new 84,000-square-foot facility requires a new sprinkler system before racks, refrigeration and freezer systems can be installed. The cost to install the required sprinklers, as well as to replace the lost equipment, racks and refrigeration and freezer units is staggering. This is in addition to the fact that the 150,000 people Manna was serving monthly prior to the hurricane has ballooned, due to the number of people who now need assistance because they lost their homes in the storm, or they lost jobs due to the impact on the tourism industry.
“CFIC is proud to represent the generous grocers in the Carolinas who have donated product and pledged monetary donations and whose employees have volunteered throughout Western North Carolina in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene,” Kueffner said.
“The CFIC Board of Directors believed it was important for us to make this additional $50,000 donation on behalf of the Carolinas’ food industry as a whole. We hope this donation will encourage other organizations, businesses and individuals to contribute what they can to help Manna FoodBank and Western North Carolina recover.”
Those interested can gift money to Manna FoodBank at donate.mannafoodbank.org. Every dollar that is donated helps to distribute enough food for four meals.
“We are grateful for the Carolinas Food Industry Council for their incredible, abiding partnership with Feeding the Carolinas which has benefited MannaA and our sister food banks across the Carolinas for a number of years,” Neal said. “We are also deeply appreciative of them coming alongside Manna with this wonderful gift during unimaginable crisis in so many of our Western North Carolina communities.”
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