When was the last chance you got to help a local food pantry by, well, eating?
Area residents will get that exact opportunity at the Feb. 1 fundraiser at 220 Restaurant to benefit Area Christians Together in Service (ACTS).
Lee Anne Peoples, executive director of ACTS, said tickets are $8 each and are available now. Advance sales are preferred, Peoples said, but not required. The fundraiser plates include trout, French fries and cole slaw. “We’d love for people to come and join us,” she said. The fundraiser is from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.
ACTS, located at 201 S. William St., has been a beehive of activity, she told host John C. Rose during Monday’s Town Talk. “We’ve seen about double the amount of people in the last few months than we saw prior to COVID.” The fundraiser will help the organization continue to provide hot lunches on weekdays as well as hep to keep the pantry stocked.
Click play to listen to TownTalk…
“We’ve been serving between 120 and 160 or 170 (people) Monday through Friday,” Peoples said of the hot lunch program. She and cook Thomas Blackwell are the only paid staff, she added. “We’re almost completely volunteer-driven,” Peoples said. “We would not be able to do what we do without volunteers.”
More lunches are headed out the door each day because people are taking food to family, friends and neighbors who need the assistance. “COVID has increased the numbers of people we’ve been serviing, but it has decreased the number of volunteers,” she said.
Peoples said tickets are available at ACTS from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. – and ACTS will happily take donations to help fill the pantry, too. In short supply are items like canned fruits and vegetables, 1-pound or 2-pound bags of rice or beans, boxes of crackers packaged in plastic sleeves such as saltines. Also needed are gallon-size cans of food that can be used for lunches, she said.
Of course, monetary donations are always acceptable, Peoples said. Mail checks to ACTS, P.O. Box 25, Henderson, NC 27536.
The last 220 fundraiser to benefit ACTS sold between 800 and 1,000 tickets, People said. ACTS board members have tickets for sale. Board members, in addition to Peoples, are: Hope Breedlove, Gwenn Bridges, Ulice Hill Evans, Pam Jackson, Candy Moore, Connie L. Markham, Jack Richardson, Abidan Paul Shah, CeCe Tucker, Linda Weaver, Argatha White-Vass and Rev. Johnny Yount.
ACTS is very fortunate to have such a dedicated board, she said. “They really care about their community,” said Peoples. “It’s so important to have people like that in a leadership role,” she added.
To learn more, call ACTS at 252.492.8231 or email Peoples lapeoples@actsofhenderson.org.