Healthy Foods for the Community

Food Security Community Connection

Healthy Lincoln County focuses on increasing food access by bringing in food donations to the county. We partner with food pantries and other organizations that help feed people. This is accomplished through a partnership with the Twin villages Foodbank Farm (TVFF), and their storage and distribution center dubbed “The Hub”. TVFF is a grow-to-give farm that works with all of the area food pantries. The pantries and organizations that run share tables/sheds travel to the HUB weekly during the growing season, picking up totes of fresh produce. Additionally, the organizations that run the share tables with gleaned and donated produce, also receive donated dry goods, allowing the distribution process to operate year-round.

A food security hotline is managed at Healthy Lincoln County, where callers are connected to local food resources across the county. Referrals are also received from a variety of sources, such as the Central Lincoln County YMCA, Sweetser Services, police departments, or by word of mouth. Each referral is handled with care and consideration, and the support that has been provided ranges from assistance filling out a food benefit application, to a discussion on how the local food pantry operates. Emergency food boxes and other immediate resources are also delivered to callers, based on their needs.

Creating and sharing resources is a large aspect of this work, HLC wants to ensure that food resources are highly publicized and consistent across all partners. We create resources that are emailed to food security partners, consisting of monthly food pantry calendars, social media posts, and one-page reference guides for the variety of programs available to people in this county. A weekly newspaper column in the Lincoln County News managed by HLC staff, and a quarterly newsletter also helps spread information far and wide.

There are many ways to get involved in this important work. Interested partners should reach out to Michaela at mstone@healthylincolncounty.org