A huge shout out and thank you to Jenny Lee and the United Way of Rowan County. Last year at this time, grocery stores had bare shelves, farmers and producers had a glut of produce and products, and people in our community were struggling to feed their families. Bread Riot, working with Rowan-Salisbury Schools and Salisbury Housing Authority as well as Wiley School Apartments, worked out our summer produce distribution schedule to accommodate new schedules and protocols.

Thanks to the United Way COVID-19 grant program, Bread Riot was able to triple our “normal” summer distribution and extend our produce giveaway program from our usual two months (June and July) to four months (June through September). All produce was sourced from local farmers!! We went from distributing about 3,000 pounds of produce in 2019 to almost 10,000 pounds of produce in 2020! We couldn’t have done it without our United Way grants as well as our generous grants from FFTC/Salisbury Foundation and St. John’s Lutheran.

We are looking forward to this summer, where we will be teaming up once again with Rowan Salisbury Schools to distribute local produce, thanks to generous grants from United Way and St. John’s Lutheran.

— Carol Schmitz-Corken

Salisbury