History of FeedNC

Families should have the food and resources they need to be healthy and stable. FeedNC is proud to gather and share our community’s food, education, and essentials with families facing temporary and often demoralizing financial setbacks. We have seen time and again: when neighbors help neighbors, we rebuild confidence and offer a catalyst for change.

Our History

In 1986, the First Baptist Church of Mooresville launched the Mooresville Soup Kitchen, providing a free hot meal to anyone in need. Thirty years later, MSK volunteers and staff were preparing more than 30,000 hot meals annually in our Broad Street facility. But were we doing enough to help our neighbors overcome their temporary setbacks? In 2017, MSK undertook a months-long surveying effort of our clients and the community to understand their needs better. From U.S. Census data, we learned more than 9,000 of our Mooresville neighbors were eligible for food-assistance programs. While we were feeding far fewer than 9,000 people per year, they were coming from a broader geography than Mooresville alone. And weekly groceries, they said, would be more useful than hot meals.

Three years later, we have re-imagined the work of our organization. While we still deliver free hot meals to guests, we also offer a free pantry four days a week. In 2020, 1,094 volunteers gave more than 27,000 hours to our food programs - sorting donations, stocking shelves, and getting to know our shoppers. In turn, these volunteers helped 2,200 people receive groceries from the FeedNC Pantry program in 2020. Most came from Iredell County, but there were many from Mecklenburg, Rowan, Cabarrus, Catawba, and Lincoln counties. Staff provided confidential referrals to essential transitional resources such as childcare, transportation, mental health counseling, substance abuse counseling, career planning, and domestic violence prevention. And we have launched a Culinary Workforce Development initiative to help underemployed individuals train for jobs in the regional food industry. Since the program’s inception, 16 students have graduated and obtained jobs.

In short, we are more than a soup kitchen. So in February 2020, Mooresville Soup Kitchen became FeedNC. This re-naming was not just a marketing exercise. It is our daily reminder that we can dispel the stigma of asking for help and rejoice in the nourishment of serving others.

More Families Face New Challenges

According to 2019 U.S. Census Bureau data, 43,000 people in Iredell County qualify for food- assistance programs. There are tens of thousands more in adjacent counties, and COVID-19 adds more families to that count every day. But FeedNC has operated at full capacity in its Broad Street facility for several years. We have sacrificed scarce parking places to make two small additions to our building; we have rented off-site space for food storage; our culinary instruction programs can only access our kitchen after public hours; we must encourage the speediest decisions by pantry shoppers if we want to accommodate our goal of 50 shoppers per hour.

Without more space, we cannot serve the thousands of additional families who need food and essentials now.

To meet these growing needs, FeedNC has searched exhaustively in the Mooresville area for a larger facility. Since no existing building meets our needs, FeedNC will, in January 2021, complete the purchase of an 8.54 acre site on Charlotte Highway in Mooresville. There we will build a new 26,775-square-foot facility that nearly quadruples the space in which we deliver our programs. For example: