CAC Benefits from Hunger Walk and Community

by Bailey Basham, Messenger Intern
Last year, more than 250 donors, sponsors and walkers raised $14,547 to support programs designed to alleviate food insecurities on the Mountain. One year later, planning for the second annual Rotary Hunger Walk on the Mountain Goat Trail has begun.
The goal of the Rotary Hunger Walk, scheduled to take place on Sept. 3, is to bring awareness to the poverty present in the greater Sewanee community and to raise money to support a local food bank and a community provision organization.
Money raised from registration fees, sponsorships and community donations goes to support food ministries led by the Community Action Committee (CAC) at Otey Parish in Sewanee and the Morton Memorial Food Bank in Monteagle.
One thing each of these organizations has in common is they all rely on the same entity for their support: the greater Sewanee community.
“We depend on volunteers,” said Betty Carpenter, director of the CAC. “We depend on grants. We depend on University students. We depend on not only the members of Otey Parish, but the members of St. James. Every first Sunday of the month, they have a food collection for CAC, as does Otey Parish. Members of the community are aware of our needs, and they bring donations. All the positions—weekly volunteers, people who do our Facebook page, our website—are all volunteers. We depend greatly on volunteers to carry on the work.”
In a 2014 study by Feeding America, a nonprofit network of food banks in the U.S., it was reported 13 percent of Franklin County residents are food insecure. This means almost 5,500 members of the community do not have access to affordable, nutritious foods.
According to Carpenter, one in three of those 5,500 Franklin County residents are children.
“The purpose of the CAC is to provide assistance for persons in crisis, to provide services related to basic human needs and to identify ways to break the cycle of poverty” in Sewanee, Midway, Jump Off and Sherwood, according to the mission statement on the organization’s website. In an average month, the CAC gives away anywhere from 65 to 95 bags of groceries. Food supplies for the CAC ministry come from community donations and from the Second Harvest Food Bank in Nashville.
“For a community like Sewanee that means to continue to bring awareness to the poverty that exists on this mountain, and to really live into that word community. People are scared they’re not going to have enough to eat or feed their children. It’s a real problem,” said Carpenter. “Our job is to say, ‘How can we make this better?’ and to give help where help is needed.”
The biggest problem Carpenter has faced, and thus one of the goals of the Hunger Walk, is making the local community aware that food insecurity and poverty is a real problem.
“Our biggest challenge is to make people aware that there is so much poverty here because it’s hidden. We don’t drive through the neighborhoods; we don’t see people sleeping on street corners. So if we don’t see it, we don’t know it exists,” said Carpenter.
Carpenter is a fairly recent addition to the CAC, having volunteered to serve as an interim director until the position could be filled. That was three years ago, and Carpenter hasn’t looked back.
“It was not very long into the job where meeting the people, hearing their stories, knowing what a difference CAC makes—hearing people say, ‘I don’t know what I would do if you were not here—my food stamps have been cut; I’m raising my grandchildren; I’m disabled; I am not able to work—and if CAC were not here, I just don’t know what I would do’—it was such an easy decision to stay,” said Carpenter. “I’ve not regretted it.”
Carpenter, who is an ordained deacon in the Episcopal Church, said her work with the CAC allows her to live out her calling.
“My ordination promises I will look out for the poor. I really get to live into my ordained life every single  solitary day, and that’s pretty cool,” said Carpenter.
Anyone interested in donating to or volunteering with the CAC food ministry may contact Betty Carpenter at Otey Parish by calling (931) 598-5926 or emailing <cacoteyparish@gmail.com>.
To register for, donate to or become a sponsor of the Hunger Walk, contact Carpenter or Monteagle Sewanee Rotary President John Goodson <johngood​son@bellsouth.net>.