Let’s Talk About It: Food Insecurity in Alamance County

For Elon students, it’s easy to get lost in the “Elon Bubble,” but the outside community is not nearly as privileged as the campus we so love. In fact, according to census data from 2019, approximately 15% of Alamance County residents live in poverty. Though there are many aspects of poverty—housing, health care, education—one specific one stands out in Alamance County in particular: food insecurity.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines food insecurity as the lack of consistent access to enough “nutritionally adequate and safe foods” for an active and healthy life. Prior to the pandemic, nearly 14 million U.S. households experienced food insecurity at some point during the year, according to 2019 USDA data.

In comparison to states nationwide, North Carolina ranks ninth of the top ten most insecure states, according to recent data from Feeding America. But the food insecurity statistics within Alamance County are just as staggering as the state’s—according to Feeding America’s most recent Map the Meal Gap project data, the county’s food insecurity rate is 14%, which equals about 22,470 people.

Though sometimes we may not feel it inside the Elon bubble, food insecurity is a problem in Alamance County—and we need to talk about it. Photo by Felipe Paes from Pexels.

Another significant issue when it comes to Alamance County and food—and one that goes hand in hand with insecurity—is that it’s actually a food desert. A food desert is an area in which individuals do not have nearby access to a food source, such as a grocery store. The parameters set by the USDA for a food desert is an area with no access to a store with fresh and healthy food options within one mile in urban areas and 10 miles or more away in rural areas.

One major organization in the county tackling food insecurity, specifically the food desert component, is Healthy Alamance, a nonprofit partnership created in 2007 between the Cone Health hospital systems and the Alamance County Health Department.

Yasmeen Lee, an Elon Service Year Fellow with Healthy Alamance and Elon alumna who graduated in 2020, says one of the reasons the organization was created was to have a non-biased organization lead the effort of the Alamance Community Health Needs Assessment and the Alamance Community Health Improvement Plan.

One approach Healthy Alamance has taken to combatting the food desert is increasing the prevalence of farmers’ markets. The first Authentically Alamance Farmers’ Market was started in North Park, in East Burlington, as what Lee describes as a “public health intervention to fix the food desert” when it first began. Today, there are three farmers’ markets in the Authentically Alamance Network—the market at Elon Community Church was the second and the one in Mebane opened just last summer.

Perhaps the most important aspect to the Authentically Alamance Farmers’ Markets is that they all accept SNAP and EBT under the USDA through the Double Bucks program.

“So basically, what that means is folks that use SNAP and EBT can bring their cards and use those to purchase. And we can match them up to $10. So, someone says, ‘Hey, I have $10, I'd like to spend,’ we can match the $10,” says Lee. “And therefore, they then have $20 to spend on fresh food. It increases access, especially when you're thinking about marginalized communities.”

Something Lee says she learned even in her first week with Healthy Alamance was that the county itself is resource rich, but the challenge becomes locating services and getting those resources into the hands of those who need them the most. That’s why these farmers’ markets are so important—in many ways, they bring the resources directly to the community, in an accessible and affordable way.

Rising senior Claire Aft, from Winston-Salem, has more knowledge about food insecurity in Alamance County than most Elon students ever will. Aft’s father is CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina, one of the largest food banks in the state.

In our conversation with her, she outlined what she says is the most important thing for Elon students to know about the food insecurity people face right outside of our comfort zone.

“I think the biggest thing is that it has no face. You can’t assume, and you can’t judge people’s lifestyles. You can’t say ‘Oh, you have a Louis Vuitton purse, why are you coming to get canned food?” says Aft. “It’s the same thing at Elon, you can’t assume that just because you can afford tuition and housing, that you can afford food.”

Food insecurity, and in turn, the food desert in Alamance County is an immense and incredibly prominent issue, one that isn’t just an easy fix. Likewise, the “Elon Bubble,” and thus, lack of knowledge of the surrounding area, is just as problematic and will take conscious effort to correct.