Grimesland outreach faces challenge to fill holiday needs

Carolyn Spencer is expecting more than 400 people for Thanksgiving, and, if that weren't stressful enough, she's having to deal with some last-minute changes to her dinner plans.

Spencer learned earlier this fall that the sponsor of her ministry's annual Thanksgiving food distribution would be serving dinner somewhere else for the holiday. But she's grateful that volunteers are still working to help put food on the table for low-income families served by First Born Community Development Center.

For more than a decade, the congregation of Winterville's Covenant United Methodist Church has been providing all the ingredients for a holiday meal to families that First Born serves. This year, the church announced plans to host a Thanksgiving celebration in west Greenville instead.

That's when Robbie Taylor and some fellow church volunteers got together to talk turkey.

“The group got together and prayed about this said, ‘We just can't see this going away ... we can't leave this,'” Taylor said. “These people (First Born's clients) are underserved. Many of them don't even know how to apply for the help that is out there for them, but they do know Mrs. Carolyn and they know First Born.

“They know that if they go there and they have a need, somehow or another, as bad as everything has been, they (First Born) will find a way to get them help,” he said. “(First Born) just continues to be a rock in that community. They find a way.”

Taylor and Brandon Tate decided they had to find a way as well.

The men launched a massive e-mail campaign to give First Born's families a reason to give thanks.

It is not the first time Taylor and Tate have helped head up a holiday drive. Two years ago, the men helped lead an effort to launch a Christmas food distribution at First Born.

In three weeks, they raised more than $12,000 to provide meals for an event that has become a holiday tradition.

This year, they are working to raise twice that amount. Taylor sent out a mass e-mail to everyone in his address book, including business contacts for his company, Equipment Plus Foodservice.

Tate, chief executive officer of Atlantic Wireless, did the same, beginning his solicitation letter by simply stating, “OK, I need 24,000.”

“This year, we're trying to fund it (First Born's food distribution) for both Thanksgiving and Christmas,” Tate said. “We've all committed. ... God's going to deliver. It's not a question.”

If there were ever a time Spencer needed certainty, this is it. Like food banks and other ministries across the country, First Born has been hurt by the nation's economic recession.

“This year has been the hardest year that I've seen since we started our program,” Spencer, First Born's executive director, said.

First Born was founded in 1992 as a nonprofit outreach of First Born Holy Church near Grimesland.

The ministry depended on about $30,000-$40,000 a year from United Way, but it stopped receiving that funding about four years ago.

First Born has a remaining budget of $150,000-$200,000 a year, but Spencer said to buy the food it needs, First Born easily could spend $3,000 to $5,000 a month.

Spencer receives no salary.

Though First Born receives 5,000-7,000 pounds of food a month through the federal Emergency Food Assistance Program, there are more than 100 families on a waiting list for its services. During the most recent food distribution, a First Born board member used his own money to supply meat to give away. Before the distribution ended, the agency had run out of food altogether. Nine families went home with nothing.

“We had nothing to give them,” Spencer said. “We couldn't serve them all. We gave them what we could.”

Families continue to seek help, even though the agency stopped accepting applications in May.

“They're saying they don't have the money. They're having to keep the lights on. They can't buy their medicines ... people have lost their jobs. Their disability is so small that they barely can make it,” Spencer said. “It's just hard.”

In the past, when donors have funded holiday distributions, First Born has been able to stockpile some of its other donations. Without some reserves, Spencer worries about how First Born might fare this winter.