Every Wednesday afternoon in the heart of Swannanoa, volunteers hand out seasonal produce while community members flow through the produce market in an old church building that nonprofit Bounty and Soul hosts. Last week, it was summer squash, fresh tomatoes and watermelon for the summer season. Swannanoa is an unincorporated rural community in eastern Buncombe County between Asheville and Black Mountain. Ingles, the area’s only grocery store, was destroyed during Tropical Storm Helene, leaving residents with a 10-mile commute either east or west to get to access groceries. That makes the community one of the regions food deserts.
Ali Casparian is the executive director of Bounty and Soul. She founded the organization after experiencing food insecurity when she moved to the area after a traumatic situation. When she would give back by volunteering at local food banks, she was disappointed that people usually received processed, canned food.
One day, she went to MANNA, a food bank that serves 16 counties and the Qualla Boundary. The organization is a central point for regional food banks in Western North Carolina to pick up food, especially crops that farmers give away. Casparian saw walls of produce that were going to waste because no one had picked it up yet. She took some of the produce home and with other community volunteers, they had a small, free farmers market…