The Durham community is next in line to host The Sunday Supper, this time in support of the Catholic Charites’ planned $1.7 million Durham Community Food Pantry and other efforts to address food insecurity in the community. A meal featuring selections from some of the best of local Durham vendors is planned along with live music and a community table that will seat 750 people. The supper is planned for Sunday, April 29 from 12-3 p.m. at the American Tobacco Campus Amphitheater. Tickets are on sale now through www.SundaySupperDurham.com.
The Durham Community Food Pantry is a program of Catholic Charities of The Catholic Diocese of Raleigh and will be located at the Lakewood Shopping Center. This facility will utilize the Catholic Charities Service model in place in the Raleigh food pantry, Catholic Parish Outreach, which has successfully served Wake County for the past 40 years. The goal is that by 2021, the Durham Community Food Pantry will assist 4,500 individuals each month and distribute 1.5 million pounds of food each year. For more information about this new facility, please visit www.CatholicCharitiesRaleigh.org/Durham-Food-Pantry.
According to the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina, the County of Durham faces an estimated one-million-pound shortage of food annually, with nearly one fifth of citizens and one in four children considered “food insecure,” living without a sufficient supply of food. The Sunday Supper will help raise the remaining funds necessary to build a new food pantry that will provide 1.5 million pounds of food to the community each year by 2021. Additional proceeds will support End Hunger Durham and their methods of reaching food insecure citizens with information helpful to meeting critical needs.
“We see all kinds of families that need a little bit of help putting a meal on the table,” says Lisa Perkins, Catholic Charities Executive Director. “Some of our clients are working low wage jobs and can’t pay their bills, others have been recently laid off and are still looking for work.”
Event organizers are actively recruiting sponsors, donations of materials and volunteer help. “We’re looking for companies and individuals willing to donate and lend a hand in this important effort,” said James Glenn, a former Duke University football player spearheading the event. “We have a great event in store that will help close an important food insecurity gap in Durham.” Prospective donors, volunteers and ticket purchasers can visit www.SundaySupperDurham.com to take action.
Michael Goodmon, vice president of real estate at Capitol Broadcasting Company, said, “American Tobacco Campus has a long history of hosting events important to our community, and I can’t think of anything more important than helping to take a step toward making sure no one in Durham goes hungry.”
The Durham event is based on a nationally recognized Triangle event held in November 2016. Days after Hurricane Matthew dealt a devastating blow to eastern North Carolina in 2016, a group of concerned Triangle residents created a community event to help families impacted by the storm. The event, known as The Sunday Supper, brought together 1,000 people around the largest communal dining table North Carolina had ever set. The event raised more than $189,000 for hurricane relief. Since 2016, The Sunday Supper model has been used to bring people together in other communities like Kinston, Rocky Mount and Charlottesville, Virginia.
For more information about the event, please contact Daniel Altenau, Director of Communications, at (919) 821 – 9767 or by email at Daniel.Altenau@raldioc.org.