The mission of Grace Food Ministries is to provide assistance in the form of a meal and grocery supplies to food insecure individuals and families of our community in a safe and non judgmental environment.
We are a partner agency of Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina. This allows us to purchase food from them at greatly reduced prices, and because of our partnership, Second Harvest has assigned 3 local grocery stores that donate food that has reached the sell by date. We have 2 Food Lions, one on Talbert and the other on Forest Hill, along with the Save A Lot on Talbert. We pick up food 6 days a week. We typically pick up 16,400 lbs. of food per month.
We stay very busy!
For more information call the church office at 249-7211. Or follow us on Facebook!
After a period of reflection Grace Food Ministries will be reopening the Sunday Lunch program on October 6. There is no other program providing a meal in Lexington on Sundays. For some of the people we serve, this is the only meal they will get over the weekend. In addition, Second Harvest states that there are many pantries in Davidson County but very few “soup kitchens”, so the need for meals is greater.
We recognize that a weakness in the past kitchen management was concentrating the work with only a few dedicated volunteers. The vision is to create teams of volunteer kitchen helpers with a team leader who would rotate and share duties including obtaining supplies, completing paperwork and supervising the cooking, serving of meals, and cleanup. There will also be an individual assigned to each team to provide security, which would include crowd management, searching large bags and backpacks for weapons and watching for and preventing potential troubling events.
We are appealing to both Grace Church and the wider community Churches for the volunteers. In the past we have had seven community churches that assisted with meal serving; therefore we have reached out to these Churches for their continued assistance, and hope to expand their duties to include being a member of one of the kitchen teams. We believe with enough volunteers we can create meals while enabling church members to attend Church services.
One of the biggest challenges will be to maintain monetary sustainability of the Sunday Lunch program, therefore we have resumed our partnership with Second Harvest. This is a government sponsored program and as a result the cost of food is minimal, pricing we could not obtain at any other retail outlet. Also, throughout the year we receive free food, referred to as SAM product (purchased through State Awarded Money). Sunday Lunch is also on the waiting list to once again be a part of the Store Rescue program. Once a store becomes available we will only need to haul one day per week, to give us the meat, bread, produce and deserts we use for lunch. This would only require a small team of three members to haul food, and as the food is free, is a great way to provide for our program.
This is a meaningful ministry that is very beneficial to our surrounding community. All of us that have been a part of Sunday Lunch are excited to once again provide our clients with a safe place to gather, a sense of fellowship and a hot meal.
The Sunday Lunch Program is an ecumenical program for those in need of lunch on Sunday.
The program began in 2004. We serve on average 75 weekly meals and have served over 20,000 meals with the help of seven local churches.
Currently the parishes of First Baptist, First Lutheran, First Presbyterian, First Reformed United Church of Christ, First United Methodist, Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic, and Wesley Heights United Methodist help prepare and serve the meals at Grace Episcopal Church in the church Undercroft.
The Sunday Lunch Program serves lunch from 12:30 p.m. until 1:30 p.m.
Grace Episcopal Church 