George Real Estate Group Radio Broadcast

From Crisis to Community: Manna Food Bank's Journey

• George Real Estate Group

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Noah George welcomes Micah Chrisman from Manna Food Bank to discuss the organization's incredible journey of resilience and rebuilding following the devastating impacts of Hurricane Helene. The timing couldn't have been more dramatic - just two days before the hurricane struck, Manna's board had approved pursuing a new facility in Mills River, as they had outgrown their location on a flood plain. Then disaster hit, destroying their entire food reserves and warehouses with a 20-foot wall of water.

Micah shares the remarkable story of how Manna never missed a beat despite losing everything except their fleet of trucks. Within days, they were operating emergency distributions at the Western North Carolina Farmers Market, serving over 8,000 families who had lost everything. The community response was extraordinary, with volunteers driving from as far as North Dakota to deliver supplies, and financial support pouring in from across the country.

The conversation reveals the shocking scale of food insecurity in Western North Carolina - Manna serves approximately 158,000 people monthly across 16 counties through their network of 225 partner agencies. These numbers have more than doubled since pre-COVID days, demonstrating the persistent economic challenges facing many families. Through partnerships with major grocery chains and local farmers, Manna provides not just canned goods but fresh produce, meat, cheese, and eggs to those in need. Now, they're "building an airplane while flying it" - establishing their new 84,000-square-foot facility while continuing to serve their community without interruption. Want to be part of this inspiring mission? Visit mannafoodbank.org to learn how you can volunteer or support their critical work feeding our neighbors.

Speaker 1:

The George Real Estate Group radio broadcast is celebrating 10 years on WHKP. The George Real Estate Group is celebrating 10 years on the radio, live every Thursday morning at 10.05 on WHKP 107.7 FM and AM 1450 and streaming online at WHkpcom Each Friday morning at 845,. The George Real Estate Group presents the Hometown Hero Award to someone in our community who goes above and beyond to make our hometown a better place to live. Here's this week's Hometown Hero Show. It's 845 and it's time now for our George Real Estate Group Hometown Hero Series and it is always a pleasure to gather with Noah George from the George Real Estate Group to talk a little real estate and talk about some of the hometown heroes and the organizations in our area that do so much in our area that do so much. We're seeing so much being done right now in another crisis that we are found ourselves in, but anyway, good morning, noah.

Speaker 2:

Well, good morning and, yes, so grateful to be here every Friday morning sponsoring the Hometown Heroes series, and this is the highlight of my week. I know you and I get to gather around the mics and have the conversation, uh, with incredible men and women serving the community that you know, in our community has gone through so much and so, uh, you know, I heard something that was so interesting yesterday. Uh, you know, yesterday, I guess yesterday was a six month anniversary of helene and I I saw it, it said so eloquently.

Speaker 2:

six months ago we were praying for relief from the rain and then oh yeah yesterday we were praying for rain for relief, yeah, from the fires, and again it's a very sobering and challenging uh you know experience that our community is going through, um, just in both events and, of course, our thoughts and prayers. But again we're here every friday morning sponsoring the hometown hero series and the real estate market is uh continuing to grow I'm sure it is.

Speaker 2:

The market continues to move. I mean we're january, february. We're up six percent in henderson county with the number of homes sold this jan February versus the previous January February. The prices are holding. Our average single-family home price is around $550,000. Still low inventory levels hovering around 400 active single-family homes, and that fluctuates, but I mean every single day. We're helping people buy, know, buy, sell, invest in real estate. We have people that we're helping with their real estate portfolios, with, uh, you know, with their rental properties or commercial properties. We have clients, uh, wanting to discuss giving their real estate to non-profits and and and helping and giving back.

Speaker 2:

I mean there's so many scenarios that we are. We've had the privilege to help people walk through that's's at the George Real Estate Group.

Speaker 1:

And Noah, join me in welcoming Micah Crispin from man of Food Bank to the mics. How you doing, Micah.

Speaker 3:

Hey y'all, thanks for having me and appreciate you bearing with me as I'm. You know, I'm pretty sure I dodged like three fires on the way here you know, oh gosh, oh man All forms of traffic and things.

Speaker 1:

Uh, yeah, hearts go out to folks out there it's crazy right now. It really really is and uh, you can see the smoke and haze. We have a an air quality alert for henderson county. But we appreciate you braving all the elements to come visit with us. We want to talk about man of food bank and uh, and we want to really officially welcome you to henderson county. Uh, that's the exciting part of the whole thing.

Speaker 3:

Welcome here to henderson county well, hey, on behalf of you know, myself and all of our staff, uh, thank you for welcoming us. Um, we were, you know, what was supposed to be a two-year transition. We were exploring this facility here in mills river um, north carolina. The warehouse it's a former fedex facility yeah two days before the storm hit um, our board approved us to pursue it okay, we were in the due diligence phase um, and so we knew that our former facility off of Swan Noah River Road in Asheville was.

Speaker 3:

You know, back in 2018, our board had said hey you know we're on a flood plain we need to think about we've reached capacity issues. We need to start looking for a new facility. But then COVID hit. Cost of everything went up Right right.

Speaker 3:

Looked at exploring and building a place that was not attainable, so then we were looking at this place, mills river, and then, two days later, uh, right before helene, you know um, we lost everything, and so that was it. You lost everything yes, our entire food reserves. Our two warehouses um everything except for our fleet of trucks. We had moved them to higher ground right and we had prepared our space, moved all the food up off the ground, um, in anticipation that there might be a little bit of water that gets in and you know, covers the floor type of thing, and didn't expect to have total loss, yeah total loss 20 foot.

Speaker 3:

You know flood surge of water across that whole area. And so next, uh, two weeks we were doing, you know, distributions at the Western North Carolina farmers market and then the sellers of this warehouse at Mills River, they gave us an emergency lease for the space, so we got the keys. Two weeks post, the storm Started receiving all of the donations there from across the country, from our sister food banks and you know Charlotte, and then we closed on the property in November. So we're officially neighbors.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's great. It's a lot to consider and process everything that happened. Let's back up, though, for those. You would think everybody knows about Manifood Bank but let's not make that assumption.

Speaker 3:

You guys serve. Was it 16 counties? Yes, sir, yeah, 16 counties here in western north carolina, um, and so, yeah, we're all across this region. We drive all the way up to the edge of tennessee and georgia, um, some of our most rural communities and, as a food bank, we, uh, are part of the feeding the carolina's national network.

Speaker 3:

So, across the country there are over 200, plus food banks, and so we're a non-profit. That's part of feeding america and our whole mission. We started over 40 um almost 42 years ago now, in 1983, and yeah, it was just a little operation in the basement of a church at that time doing some food distribution, but then within our first two years we quickly outgrew that space and, honestly, the need for food in the region has just continuously grown.

Speaker 2:

Well, let's talk about food insecurity.

Speaker 3:

I mean, that's a real thing yeah, yeah, even before helene struck, we had um monthly average across our 16 county service region. We were serving about 158 000 people on average across this region annually um.

Speaker 2:

That was monthly 158,000 people. That's our average.

Speaker 3:

That's significant. These are individuals, yes, sir. So what we do is as a food bank, we have the capacity again, when we have the warehouse and all these things, we bring the food in, we have storage space and then we distribute it to. We have a network of about 225 partner agencies. So those are food pantries like your, you know place that your church is, homeless shelters I mean, they could be a lot of different. You know folks, you know a lot of different variables or what it looks like, but these are just our, your neighbors, feeding neighbors kind of things, and so they get those that food brought to them from Manifood Bank and then it kind of gets distributed more locally in people's community centers etc.

Speaker 1:

And you guys deal a lot. You mentioned it a minute ago about trucks coming in. You deal with big corporations that donate food. Some of those Tell us.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so we have some incredible partnerships. We work with grocery store vendors, so you name it Ingalls, publix, food Lion. They'll help us by giving us, they'll donate food to us and help support our food distribution. And then also we work with local farmers, and so that's been. A big thing too is that we'll use some of our food sourcing money and we'll buy it directly from farmers so we can have fresh produce, meat, cheese, eggs to be able to give out to the community. And, as we know, like grocery store prices and economic opportunities, folks are struggling, and so we thought, after COVID, the numbers would go down.

Speaker 3:

Never did, never did. They just have continuously gone up, and so I think pre-COVID we were, on average, serving around 70,000 folks a month throughout our network yeah, that doubled um yeah for those four years of covid it got up to about 135,000 and, like I said just last year, our average um was 158,000.

Speaker 2:

So it's hard to comprehend yeah so and again on. So we have this ongoing need with with food insecurity here in western North Carolina, compounded with everything that everybody went through. And then you guys yourselves- oh my gosh, I mean it's a lot.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's really a miracle. I'm blown away by our staff every day. I mean, we just knew we had to jump back into action. We didn't skip a beat. Really, I mean two days of just kind of doing a you know a staff check. You know, that was just like our first with the blackout and communications just like, hey, how's everyone doing? Can you find out who's on your team alive and well and right? We did have a couple staff who did lose everything lost their entire homes as well over in black mountain.

Speaker 3:

But then you know, we just started immediately like all right, we have our trucks and we don't have a place to receive and distribute food. Where can we do that? And when western north carolina farmers market, some folks called us and said, hey, we heard you lost everything. If you can get the food and resources, you can bring it here to the farmer's market.

Speaker 3:

So that's what we did. We just started getting those calls and just said, hey, bring it all. Bring it all to the farmer's market. So that's what we did. We just started getting those calls and just said, hey, bring it all.

Speaker 1:

Bring it all to the farmer's market wow, you're bringing back the emotions of that time and oh my gosh, and how, uh, and how this community just rallied and, yes, there was so much help offered and and received by you people and many others. You're bringing all that back to me now.

Speaker 3:

We served over 8,000 families in those first two weeks post the storm and I mean, people would come, you know, and this was just like a kind of drive-through experience Folks coming just to pick up water, groceries and people. They had lost everything. They had everything packed in their car, their families, their kids, kids, and we had people from all over the country just bringing supplies. So sometimes someone pulls up with a truck and a trailer full of water and they're like we just drove down from north dakota and you know spent the last you know day and a half just driving straight here, and so, yeah, it's amazing to see how our mountain people are pulled together.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, gosh, I could talk all day about this and uh, uh, but I guess we need to talk now about how, uh we go forward and and the growth that you're in. I I noticed one quote there was a real long story in the ashville watchdog by john boyle recently, who really went into detail about manna and how uh, and. And one of the quotes I think came from someone in your organization that now you describe it kind of like trying to build an airplane while you're flying it as you, as you are getting your new digs in order out there.

Speaker 3:

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, it's a every day is a new, a new uh trial to uh find solutions for you know um. But we're we're pulling together right now. Yeah, we're upfitting. Like I said, we're expediting our upfitting of our current facility. So one of our big projects is building a new fridge, freezer, cooler space, something like grocery store size styles that you know folks don't want just canned goods and we want to make sure that we can provide fresh food like fridge tractor trailer wow trucks parked outside.

Speaker 3:

That and that just keep food refrigerated, and so we have 15 of those what an operation.

Speaker 2:

I mean what an operation, you guys. The new space is going to be 84 is 84 000 square feet. Yes, sir, some of the notes I have here is, I mean the, the, the, the building plus the outfits, over 12 million million. Is that some of the notes I have here, which includes a new refrigeration and freezer space?

Speaker 3:

I mean just an incredible undertaking, yeah, and we're so thankful we had such a loving outpouring of support that we, you know, I mean, even though our losses were at $28 million, manna, just you know we shared with folks that we've raised 37 million dollars. That's from across the country from people locally here in the region. Um, and, yeah, the western north carolina community foundation. They actually helped us um close the funding gap on this new facility. Um between them and the north car Community Foundation. They gave us $7 million Incredible.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and going forward to volunteer. What we're talking about here is done by a lot of volunteers. Oh my gosh. Yes, and going forward in the last minute, we have here going forward.

Speaker 2:

Folks can still volunteer if they'd like, and how do they get a hold of you guys and communicate?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, folks can go to mannafoodbankorg and you can see right there. If you're a person who needs food or resources, you can click on find food near you. But also if you want to volunteer and come help us pack food and help us be a part of this core mission, just yeah, visit mannafoodbankorg. We'd love to have you. We've had a huge outpouring of support over 2,000 new volunteers since the storm. Folks have just really wanted to jump into action to serve.

Speaker 1:

Micah, thank you so much for braving the elements and being with us this morning. Noah, we always thank you so much. You've got a certificate there for Micah to take back to the Manna Food Bank crews. And next week we have Rosie and Matt Rogers from Three Chop Sandwich Shop who lost their home in Polk County. They call it the Cabin of Hope. It was lost to one of the 11 homes that's been lost to the blaze and they'll be with us in the studios next week here on the George Real Estate Group Hometown Hero Series on WHKP.

Speaker 2:

Life has a way of throwing us into deep waters when we least expect it. Dr Robin Hanley Defoe knows this firsthand. One winter day, her car skidded on ice and plunged into a freezing river, trapped in sinking darkness. She had seconds to act. But instead of panicking, she reminded herself I can do hard things. She stayed calm, found a way out and survived. At the George Real Estate Group, we know that buying or selling a home can feel like that moment Overwhelming, uncertain, maybe even a little scary. But here's the thing you can do hard things and you don't have to do them alone. With decades of experience, we're here to guide you every step of the way, turning challenges into opportunities. So if you're thinking about making a move, let's do it together. Call the George Real Estate Group today, because when it comes to your future, you're stronger than you think. The George Real Estate Group today, because, when it comes to your future, you're stronger than you think.

Speaker 1:

The George Real Estate Group is located in Flat Rock, north Carolina, near Hendersonville in Henderson County. You can find them online at realestatebygregcom. The George Real Estate Group can be reached at 828-393-0134 or stop by their office at 2720 Greenville Highway, flat Rock, north Carolina. Tune in live each week on Thursdays at 10.05 am on WHKP 107.7 FM and 14.50 am, or stream online at whkpcom or download these podcasts wherever you get your podcasts. The George real estate group brings you the W H K P hometown hero series every Friday morning at eight 45.