A note from our Executive Director, Ben Williamson

On Nov. 1, around 40 million Americans, including many here in Asheville/Buncombe, lost their access to the SNAP program, which provides vital food support. For North Carolinians, this follows the loss of the state’s Healthy Opportunities Pilot (HOP) program, which was also a positive food source for many neighbors, that was cut earlier this year.

Organizations like ours have continued to try to step up and fill these gaps as best we can, but this moment, like the weeks and months post-Helene, is a call for our community to rally and support. So many have reached out and contributed financially to help us continue providing meals and groceries to anyone in our 12 Baskets Cafe program, which is needed and appreciated. You may also be interested in learning more about volunteering at our cafe program or in our food rescue and distribution efforts. You can learn more about both on our website.

Your support already allows us to rescue and redistribute around 800 meals and over 250 trips through our free store each week. It also allows us to share food and support other food justice work through our allies at Southside Free Fridge Network and Asheville Survival Program. They could also use your help, and we want to lift up our friends at MANNA, Loving Food Resources, La Colaborative Milpa, ABCCM, Bounty and Soul, Food Connection, and other orgs that are doing essential, desperately needed food distribution efforts.

But, there is something else to consider during this time.

The reason that we see programs like SNAP being cut is a fundamental lack of community, a lack of understanding and empathy for many of our neighbors, a society that’s fearful and disconnected, a broken system. Dr. King called poverty “a moral failing of society.” Yes, in many ways, it feels like we are failing each other.

So this is a challenge, but also a great opportunity. It’s an opportunity to show what coming together can do —how it can transform ourselves, each other, and our neighborhoods and cities. It’s another chance to demonstrate the reality of abundance, not the false narrative of scarcity. It’s an opportunity to share, but also to listen and learn from each other. To love each other a little bit more. Y’all know, at API, we say that “Community cures poverty.” In fact, it’s the only thing we know that can.

Your support is needed—your financial support, but also your presence, your energy, your ideas, your spirit.

Now is the time to show up and contribute in a way that works for you to one of the organizations I mentioned above. If you want to support us at API, you can jump on this year’s Give Local campaign (see our website), which just began, or visit us at 12 Baskets or through our Realities of Poverty education programming.

There’s a lot of work to do. However, we can do it, and become a little closer to each other along the way.

-Ben Williamson