Laura Early’s experience of being ordered out of a courtroom led to her current passion of helping break the cycle of poverty.
While serving jury duty, she watched a lawyer tell a young woman caught shoplifting groceries if she paid back the money, the case would be over. The woman kept saying she didn’t have any money.
Early said she raised her hand and asked the judge, “Could you tell me what it would take to satisfy her grievance?”
She said the judge told her it was of no concern of hers.
“And I said, ‘It is of every concern of mine,” Early said.
“So people,” she told an audience of nearly 200 at the 2013 Come to the Table Conferences Monday at the Community Council of the Arts, “it is of every concern of ours when people have to steal to get money for their children to eat.”
Early is the founder of the Place of Possibilities, which focuses on providing food for the needy, literacy, healthcare and job training in Bertie and three other distressed counties. She was one of four panelists to speak at the Come to the Table event, which is a project of the N.C. Council of Churches and RAFI-USA.
Sarah Gibson, conference coordinator, said there were nearly twice as many people attending as the last conference held in 2011.
“It’s really a group effort,” she said, “and, basically, Come to the Table convenes different partners, food agencies, hunger relief, health educators, gardeners, farm workers. We provide education and inspiration for people that are working to build a local food system that is accessible to everyone.”
Earline Middleton, vice president of agency services and programs at Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina in Raleigh, said the poverty rate in the 41 counties of Eastern North Carolina is 16 percent — down from 19 percent in 1990 — compared with 12 percent statewide.
The Food Bank has 129 emergency providers, she said.
“There are about 580,000 people who are considered to be food insecure or have limited access to food,” she said. “And there are about an additional 500,000 that are on the verge of food insecurity.”
Mac Legerton, a minister and educator with the Center for Community Action in Robeson County, spoke about creating food councils. A workshop explaining how to do so followed the panel discussions.
Legerton and Middleton are representatives for southeastern N.C. on the statewide sustainable local advisory council established by the legislature.
“My dream is that every county, at least in our part of the state, will form one,” he said. “And so local food councils can bring all the organizations working on food relief and food insecurity together with those that are working on local food production and local food consumption, because its all about food. It’s all about all of our food ministries.”
He said those councils have seen success.
Middleton talked about children who don’t have access to meal programs in the summer. The Food Bank sponsors a program throughout the 34-county area it serves providing more than 150,000 meals last year.
The Food Bank has an outreach program that provides a bridge to elderly people who have no way of receiving food,
It also has a program, working with other partners, providing food to children on the weekends. There is also the school children’s breakfast program.
“All of these are family-funded programs that each community can impact when government or people say ‘No, we’re not going to do it,’ ” Middleton said. “I think we need to ask, ‘Why won’t we feed kids in the summertime?’ What’s holding you back? Stand on the table and make it work.”
Wanda Bell, executive director of Word of Faith Ministries in Kenansville, said her agency provides outreach through a food bank, providing food for the needy. She started with a family of six carrying six hot plates in their car.
“Start where you are at, and then grow as you need to,” she told the group.
Angela Dorcaster, a dietician with Lenoir Memorial Hospital, said she is interested in expanding the community garden in Lenoir County to children, as well as creating awareness of the garden.
Gene Riddle, founder of a community garden in Snow Hill, said he came to the conference to look for partnerships to help with the garden project.
Shenile Ford, director of the Greene County Cooperative Extension, said she came to find resources for local food initiatives and community gardens.
Margaret Fisher can be reached at 252-559-1082 or Margaret.Fisher@Kinston.com. Follow her on Twitter @MargaretFishr.