Tag Archive for: #thehelpcenter

TownTalk: The Help Center Helps Those In Need

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Since Twanna Jones founded The Help Center in 2017, she has found that there are many opportunities to provide something to someone. But what she said her organization strives to do is to provide hope as well as help.

“It’s beautiful and sustainable when you give them both,” Jones said on TownTalk Tuesday.

Jones, the Help Center staff and its volunteers need only look across the street if they need reminding about the hope part: Rebuilding Hope is located just across Raleigh Road from the Help Center building.

Whether it’s the quarterly baby shower designed to provide single moms- and dads-to-be with some of the basics that they’ll need when a newborn is added to the household to the gleaning program that puts young people in farmers’ fields to help with the harvest, The Help Center North Carolina finds a place where help is needed and then goes about the task of filling that need.

Jones and her team serve Vance, Granville, Warren, Franklin and Wake counties, and they offer different programs and services in each spot.

In Vance County, the emphasis is on food insecurity and keeping a diaper bank stocked.

There’s a home delivery program that just got started – a partnership with Door Dash. It’s designed for people with chronic health issues to have weekly food deliveries since they may not be able to get out to get groceries.

All of these programs require volunteers, and Jones said she’s always in the market to have more volunteers to come and help out.

The monthly food distribution is a big one in Vance County. More than 200 families are signed up to pick up food on the 4th Monday of each month.

Then, twice a month, the Help Center opens its doors for clients to choose their own foods instead of getting the pre-made bags. Volunteers are needed for this program, too.

Food distribution Wednesday.

“It takes all of us to work together,” Jones said, giving a nod to the existing agencies in the area that also provide support to the community. “Joining together…makes our community stronger, better and healthier.”

One gap the Help Center is working to fill is getting out into the rural community. The “mobile pantry” program brings food to folks who need it, but that food delivery is just part of the contact. Volunteers deliver food, but that is coupled with making safety checks on older adults, she said. “We wanted to get out into the community and connect with people.” To do that, “you start with food.”

Visit the website at http://www.thehelpcenternc.com to learn about all the volunteer opportunities and how to make donations, or phone 919.391.7300. The office is open Monday-Friday, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Some of the immediate needs, in addition to volunteers, include donations of:

  • Bottled water
  • Gatorade
  • Baby diapers
  • Adult diapers
  • Pop-lid canned items
  • Peanut butter
  • Juice packs
  • Oodles of noodles
  • Breakfast bars

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The Local Skinny! The Help Center, Helping Those In Need

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The Help Center provides an array of services for people who need help, but Twanna Jones, president and founder of the nonprofit organization, said that she and her team must also provide hope along with the help.

One cannot go without the other, Jones told WIZS’s Bill Harris on Thursday’s The Local Skinny!

“It’s the combination of the two that really is the fabric of what we do here,” she said, and by offering help through tangible services, as well as a generous dose of hope, “we change the dynamics of our community and the nation.”

Jones created The Help Center in 2017 out of a lifelong passion for helping her fellow man. In just a few short years, The Help Center operates in 11 counties, including the facility at 415 Raleigh Road in Henderson.

Area residents can sign up for the next pet clinic, scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 29 from 8 a.m. to 12 noon. The first clinic was so successful – 45 pets came through – that Jones scheduled another one. Call 919.391.7300 to sign up for the Oct. 29 clinic.

“We were nonstop during the pandemic,” Jones said of the various programs that are tucked up under The Help Center. From food distribution to youth enrichment programs and support for the elderly,  volunteers and staff kept providing help and hope, hope and help.

But the cadre of volunteers has shrunk recently, and food donations are down, so Jones said The Help Center could use a little help from the community.

“We are truly in need,” she said, “not only volunteers, but resources, too, because of rising food prices.

A fairly new addition to The Help Center’s food distribution is the Healthy Food Pantry, which distributes pre-made boxes of fresh produce to clients who request them. Volunteers tuck recipes in the boxes, which come in handy for those who are unfamiliar with how to prepare some of the produce they receive.

They also offer a “fresh market,” Jones said, “to offer more fresh produce for families to come out and ‘choice’ shop – which means they choose the items themselves.

On the horizon is their Thanksgiving food distribution program the week before the Nov. 24 holiday and the winter proram, which will take place the week before Christmas. This program will hearken back to days gone by, when gifts included peppermint sticks, fruit and nuts, she said.

“We’ll set it up sort of like a parade,” Jones explained. Participants will receive a food box and some other Christmas goodies, but the emphasis this year will be on tradition. “We want to go back to that old-fashioned Christmas…to sit down and break bread together.”

Want to volunteer? Call 919.391.7300 ext 3, visit www.thehelpcenternc.com or text “mission” 833.241.4082.

Need help? Call 919.391.7300, visit www.thehelpcenter.com or text “help” to 833.241.4082.

 

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