Imagine a child who does not look forward to the joy of summer.

The summer months are a challenging time for families across South Carolina.  Throughout the school year, 54% of school age children in our state are on the free or reduced price lunch program. Eighty-four per cent are on the free or reduced price breakfast program.

24% of South Carolina’s children live in poverty.

The free or reduced price meals served at South Carolina schools give struggling families a little economic breathing room. With 24.4% of our children living below the basic poverty level, the meals they are served in school are the most nutritious and dependable they get throughout the year. Many of these school age children bring portions of their school meals home to share with their younger siblings. But for three months those children are at home, and do not have access to this lifeline. Their parents must cope with providing two additional meals per day per child, and it is often beyond their means. While many of us think of summer as a time of vacation, for almost 350,000 South Carolina children summer is a time of anxiety and pain.

There is no vacation from hunger.

South Carolina’s four food banks - Golden Harvest Food Bank, Harvest Hope Food Bank, Lowcountry Food Bank and Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina – all see a tremendous surge in need during the summer months. Collectively, our four hunger relief organizations must find the means to raise and distribute 15 million pounds of food during June, July and August this year to meet that need. As CEO of Harvest Hope, as a long-serving member of the South Carolina Food Bank Association (which comprises the four food banks listed above) and someone who stays in constant contact with my colleagues at the three other South Carolina hunger relief non-profits, I know what a challenge it is to find the resources to get this food when most everyone is thinking of vacation and our donation levels drop. It is a challenge for all of us.

Fortunately, there is a valuable and generous new partner to help us meet that challenge.

To help feed the hungry in South Carolina communities, the South Carolina Food Bank Association announces the Border to Border Hunger Challenge sponsored by Wells Fargo, a statewide donation matching campaign that will provide $150,000 to help hungry people through our food banks. From now until June 15, Wells Fargo will match donations made to our state’s four food banks one to one once they collectively raise $150,000.

This generous matching campaign will help our food banks as they enter the most difficult and demanding time of the year. The Border to Border Hunger Challenge sponsored by Wells Fargo will provide a wonderful beginning at this difficult time of year by giving a financial boost to us to start the summer.

Donating is easy – visit http://scfoodbankassociation.org/  to learn more about the Border to Border Hunger Challenge. Choose from the tabs on the left of the page to easily donate to your local food bank and your gift will automatically be matched! Every donation made to any of the four food banks from May 14 to June 15 will be matched and will greatly help in our efforts to feed hungry children this summer.

This is also a time of year to think about those that have made a difference in our lives and about giving in their honor or memory. Is there a teacher who has made a lasting impact on your children? An armed services member you know who would be honored by knowing that a hungry family had more on their table because of them? You can make an Honorarium gift to honor friends, family members, business colleagues, neighbors or others close to you to help in our mission of feeding hungry families. Find out how donate a memoriam or honorarium: Tabitha Demetra – tdemetra@harvesthope.org

So please take a little time out from planning all the wonderful family activities you have in mind for the summer, and think of those families who cannot even plan on their next good meal. Know that for a limited time your generous efforts to help them will be met by the generosity of Wells Fargo. Your gifts will go far toward feeding our hungry South Carolina children.

And for that kindness I am grateful.

In loving appreciation,

Denise Holland

CEO – Harvest Hope Food Bank

Hunger is a secret shame that families often try to keep from others. For a family living in hunger, shame and secrecy is the bond they share. For parents who struggle daily to provide for their families, facing the reality of empty plates at their tables at every meal can be overwhelming and embarrassing. No matter how hard they may strive to provide for their families, they often feel they have failed their loved ones. They keep their hunger to themselves.

One Monday morning, I picked up the phone and a woman was calling who said she needed help. She felt she had no choice but to come for us for food for her family, but she had never asked for help before, she did not know anything about getting food from us, and she had questions. Any one of us here at Harvest Hope could have taken that call, but I was so glad that I picked it up to hear her story.

I am a single mother and I have three children. A week ago I realized I did not have enough to feed all four of us, so I stopped eating and gave all the food I could afford to my children. I was hoping that something would happen, that I would get some kind of break, but a week has gone by and I can’t go on any longer without eating. I do not get paid again until next Friday and I don’t know where to turn. I work but I just don’t make enough to meet all the expenses. Everything –gas, food, my rent and bills – it all costs so much! I can’t keep up with all the expenses.

I heard that Harvest Hope gives food to people and I want to know more about what you do and how that works. I do not want a hand out. I will work for you to get the food I need. I teach my children how important it is to pay our own way in life. I try my best to be a role model to them and not ask for hand outs, and do not spend my money frivolously.

I am at my wits end. I have to feed my children and myself and I need to get food from anyone like you who will help. But I have to be honest: I am so afraid someone will see me there and think I can’t provide for my family. I am afraid someone will take my children and I do not want to lose my children.  Can you help just for one week until I catch up? I will do whatever I can to pay you back when I get the chance.

Her call meant so much to me, but it is not unlike so many calls we get every day. This mother did not want to ask for help, not out of pride but out of fear she would lose her children. I assured her we would help, we would not judge, and she would not lose her beloved children. All that mattered is that we provide for her the food she needed for them all.

It helped when I told her that when she got on her feet she could volunteer or donate food back to us. But what was important was what happened NOW, that we help her through her immediate hunger crisis. When someone cannot provide food for themselves or their family it is a dire crisis RIGHT NOW. Hunger does not wait.

We work with individuals and families when they come to us to help them receive food through the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), which you may know as food stamps.  SNAP provides enough food to last most families through 10 to 14 days. We have found that if we can provide 90 to 100 pounds of food to people when they come to us, that will get them through the shortfall for the rest of the month. We have also found that for those who come to us for food, if we can provide that 90 to 100 pounds they only visit us three times. After that, they have lifted themselves out of their

immediate crisis and get back on their feet. But our ability to provide that quantity is entirely dependent on donation levels, and often we have no choice but to give less. We can only give what we’ve got – it’s pretty simple math, really.

Harvest Hope has different programs to provide food to those in need across 20 counties of South Carolina. We have programs like the Kids Cafe and BackPack programs to feed children, two Emergency Food Pantries for those in the Midlands who can come to us, senior boxes and Totes of Love to feed seniors and Mobile Food Pantries to directly deliver food to those who live in remote or rural areas isolated from many services. We work with over 475 agency partners who provide food to pockets of poverty and need throughout 20 counties.

Helping us provide these services, or to make sure we have 90 to 100 pounds of food for those who come to us, can be simple and easy. Just $30 will help us give enough food to one family, a family like the desperate mother and her three children, to get them through the month.

March and early April are very crucial and urgent times to donate to Harvest Hope thanks to a wonderful matching opportunity through the Alan Shawn Feinstein Foundation. The Feinstein Foundation has set aside $1 million to provide to hunger relief charities across the country, and will MATCH cash and food donations made to Harvest Hope before April 30. Total funds available from the Feinstein Foundation match can be $35,000! By donating now to help us feed hungry children, the generosity of the Feinstein Foundation will help your gift go even further towards their needs.

Over the last 15 years the Feinstein Foundation has raised more than $1.25 billion for over 2,000 agencies and houses of worship nationwide through this generous annual matching campaign.

If each of us, each family, will do this to help another family then think of the difference it will make to so many who need just a little help right now.

On behalf of our family at Harvest Hope to your family, will you help others today?

Our most gracious love and appreciation to you,

Denise Holland

Everyone Can Make a Difference

Imagine an empty plate at a dining table.  Imagine the anxiety and concern of parents who desperately want to make sure their family has enough to eat, but circumstances out of their control prevent them from having what they need to put food on their tables.

Imagine that Christmas means fourteen days of hunger to many children. During the holiday break, which is two weeks for most area school districts, the free or reduced breakfast and lunches that form the staple for so many at-risk school children are not available. Parents already struggling to make ends meet often cannot find the extra money to feed their children during those chilly fourteen days. Imagine a child who, rather than looking forward to Christmas and being excited about all the holiday season is going to offer, only looks at this time of year as a time of hunger. There are children who dread the coming of the holiday season.

This is the reality for almost 16% of South Carolina’s population, who currently live below the poverty line. More sobering is the fact that 29% of our children under the age of 18 live in poverty, a total of over 102,000 children in South Carolina. There are a lot of empty plates in our communities every night and the numbers are increasing.

A measure of this increase can be seen through our work at Harvest Hope Food Bank as we struggle to provide emergency food for the hungry across 20 SC counties. From July 2010 through June 2011, Harvest Hope provided food to 2,522,330 individuals, an increase of 24% over the previous year. Harvest Hope currently feeds an average of 49,000 people a week as we strive to reduce the number of empty plates in our communities.

During the three days before Thanksgiving, Harvest Hope served over 2,100 families at our Emergency Food Pantries in the Midlands. That’s approximately 6,500 individuals.

I know when faced with numbers like these it’s almost impossible to think about what we as individuals can do to overcome hunger in our community. But even though we see the large numbers every day and every week, at Harvest Hope we experience those numbers one family at a time. If 600 families come through our Emergency Food Pantry on a given day, then we hear 600 individual stories of family hardship. We see 600 opportunities to make a difference in the lives of a family by putting food on their table.  And we do make a difference, one family at a time.

Everyone can help us make a difference for struggling families, one family at a time. For just $50 per family, we can make sure they have enough food to last throughout the holidays. Compare that to how much money most of us spend on food at this time. The average family spends upwards of $150 on the Thanksgiving or Christmas meal alone. So think about the value of feeding an entire family throughout the entire holiday season for just $50. Help us give the Hope of food when they need us the most.

At this time of year, we are fortunate and blessed that many offices or businesses think about our hungry neighbors and find a way to help by using funds usually used for the office holiday party to donate to Harvest Hope. It is a way to spread the joy of giving throughout your workplace and getting everyone to share in contributing to the community. If your office is planning a holiday party, please think about how beneficial it would be to dedicate a donation to put food on the tables of hungry families. Harvest Hope uses 98¢of every dollar donated to feed the hungry, and every dollar buys up to seven pounds of food. Think how far a donation from your business will go toward bringing food to those who need a little help right now.

During the holiday season, Harvest Hope offers donation options to note the festivities and honor or treasure memories of loved ones, friends, colleagues, neighbors or other community acquaintances through our memorial or honorarium giving programs. These programs allow donors to contribute in honor of or on behalf of others to recognize their place in the community or preserve their memory.

We make donating as easy and as affordable as possible. Just go to our website at www.harvesthope.org and click on “Donate Now” to see the options we provide for giving.

Help us make sure that all children in our communities look on this season with hope and excitement rather than the fear of hunger. Help us get them through the fourteen days of hunger.

Thank you for your blessings and heart-felt generosity,

Denise Holland

A Miracle of Service

Miracles can reveal themselves to us in the smallest of acts. I have never had doubts about the works of God and His ability to hear our prayers and move to answer us in His own way. So when I heard the following story on WMHK FM it only strengthened my faith in the existence of miracles. I am remembering the details of the story, so please forgive me if portions are paraphrased from the original inspiring story. I am so thankful to the mother who called in to uplift others with this personal story as well as WMHK FM for allowing her the opportunity to do so.

A woman called in to the radio station to tell a story about her grandmother, who years ago faced hardship as a single mother with several children. She had no money and had run out of food in the house, and became deeply depressed after putting her children to bed hungry with no idea how to feed them the next day. She got down on her knees and prayed. Through her tears, she first thanked the Lord for His graciousness and acts of good to others, then began to pour her heart out about her situation and how she and her children had nothing to eat. She prayed for specific grocery items she knew she could stretch out and make last as long as possible to feed her family. She, in effect, gave the Lord her shopping list.

The next morning as she was getting her children dressed and ready for school, wishing with all her heart she could provide them breakfast, she was surprised by a knock at the door. The person outside her door was a stranger to her. They did not know each other at all. The stranger said the Lord “laid it upon my heart to go and provide for someone in need, and directed me to come to you specifically with these groceries.”  The woman was shocked to find that everything she prayed for the night before, all the items she knew she needed to provide for her children, were in the gift brought by this stranger.

I was moved and touched by this story for many reasons. I was struck by the faith, earnestness and complete honesty of that mother, talking to the Lord as if He were right there with her, listening to her and holding her hands. I believe God always knows already what our needs are, and just wants us to be direct and communicate our wishes and needs to Him.

I was also touched by the testimony of the stranger who came to her door.  This person responded without question to the urgings laid on their heart by God and acted without hesitation to fulfill the inspiration and provide exactly what was needed. All for someone they did not know.

As we enter the Thanksgiving season, we are already seeing long lines of families in need at our doorstep. Mothers and fathers who tell us with tears in their eyes they do not know what they would do if we were not there from time to time to help them. We are already seeing hundreds of families, who like that woman years ago, do not know where their next meal will come from and worry about their immediate future. As a charitable organization, we need faithful servants like the man who did not question and answered God’s call. We can make it easy for those who choose to be faithful servants and help with our mission.

You do not have to leave your home to go to the store or go shopping. You don’t have to fill grocery bags.  You can visit our website and provide a monetary donation of $20, $50, or $100 that will greatly assist Harvest Hope in meeting the community’s hunger needs this Thanksgiving. Harvest Hope dedicates 98¢ out of every dollar donated to feeding the hungry in our community. Please click here and see the easy ways to help us help those in need of food.

The Bible reminds us, “It gives us joy to give”.  Will you be that faithful servant to help us right now in this easy way?  I am on my knees, being thankful for you and at the same time, asking the Lord to help us in this way.

Wishing you and your family the best of all Thanksgiving blessings as you share time together,

Denise Holland
CEO – Harvest Hope Food Bank

Henry Edwards Manning, the 19th Century Westminster Archbishop wrote, “Gratitude consists in a watchful, minute attention to the particulars of our state and to the multitude of God’s gifts, taken one by one.  It fills us with a conscientiousness that God loves and cares for us, even to the least event and smallest need of life.”

This quote reminds me so much of our volunteers and the financial and food donors who show great care and concern for our mission by their thoughtful generosity.  When I consider their acts of generosity one by one I am quickly overwhelmed by such thanksgiving. I am moved by how great all of the supporters are to Harvest Hope Food Bank.  These gifts fill me with a conscientiousness that God does love and care for all of us.

A recently published US Census study shows SC has a population of over 4.5 million people, 18% of them living below the poverty line. This equates to 1 in 5 adults experiencing financial hardship putting  them at great risk for hunger.

When a person is hungry that is all they can think about.  All of life’s other problems are entirely too much and can’t be dealt with when one is hungry.  I see the faces outside my office window daily.  Over the last four years we have continued the highest distribution of food than ever in our 30 year history.  We are blessed with more donors than ever before, but the donations are between 50-70% less than what we have seen in years past.

Harvest Hope’s outreach embraces a diverse selection of feeding initiatives that provide essential nutrition to the hungry through church-led food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters as well as our own children’s hunger programs, senior programs, mobile food pantries and our own Emergency Food Pantries. Some of those coming to our pantries have no feeding options in their own communities and are force to travel to our Shop Road or Cayce facility from such distant areas as Williamsburg, Charlotte, Augusta, Dillon or Marion.  Can you imagine traveling these distances to find a friendly face who will show care and concern and will provide food when there is simply no place else to go?

I am so thankful for each and every person who helps to make our mission possible through their humanitarian presence as a volunteer, a food donor, or a financial donor.  This Thanksgiving as you and your family plan your special time together, can you help us assure that hungry families standing in line waiting patiently and hopefully for anything we can provide for them do not leave with empty hands?  You can honor a family member with a card showing that because their love made your holidays special in the past, you want to preserve your fond memories of that by helping another  family with a gift to fight hunger.  We make giving easy by visiting our website at www.harvesthope.org.  You can participate in a virtual food drive, make a donation, engage your company in HOPE floats with “I HOPE” cards or make an announcement during a holiday event for everyone to text message a donation.  Will you help us?

Many think of Harvest Hope solely as a food pantry, a door step where the hungry come to directly ask for and receive the Hope of food. But direct service through our emergency food pantries only measures a small portion of the food we distribute across 20 counties in South Carolina. The majority of the food we provide reaches hungry families and individuals through the efforts of our agency partners.


Harvest Hope is the life line for over 450 agency partners who share with us a dedication to meet the hunger needs of those struggling under economic uncertainty. Without us, many of them would be forced to shut their doors. We provide critical support for many organizations dedicated to feeding the hungry. Some of our agency partners have told us they could not survive without us.

Who are these agencies who work hand-in-hand with us to meet the needs of those who struggle with hunger daily? Many are faith-based: churches or faith organizations that include as part of their mission hunger outreach services. Other agency partners include children’s homes, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, senior centers, women’s shelters, and other service outreach providers.

Over the years Harvest Hope has grown and identified that the best way to meet the needs of the increasing numbers of hungry people is to provide quality food to these agencies while serving as a role model for others to follow. Through our shared maintenance partnership, they receive a variety of food from us for 19¢ a pound or less. Fresh produce, dairy, baked goods or other perishable food items are provided at no cost. For charities such as soup kitchens, food pantries, family shelters, missions or other organizations that provide a variety of services to at-risk populations, this means they have more funds available for all the different facets of their operations.

Our agency partners benefit from relying on Harvest Hope as a one-stop location where they can purchase all of the quality food they need for their operations at enormous savings. They tell us they could not survive without the blessing of our shared maintenance assistance and would have to close their doors, cutting off food for many who suffer from hunger in small and rural SC communities. To learn more about how we work with agencies to feed hungry families across South Carolina please visit our website here: http://www.harvesthope.org/agencyzone.aspx.

Help us make sure we remain the reliable partner for organizations that depend on us to provide food to the hungry across 20 counties.

Thank you for your blessings,

Denise Holland



We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. ~ Winston Churchill

Our prayers for others flow more easily than those for ourselves. This shows we are made to live by charity. ~ C.S.Lewis

Sometimes thirty seconds can show us a lot. If we open our minds and allow ourselves to see a different perspective for just a half a minute, sometimes we can understand another point of view or relate to another person’s struggles in ways we could not predict.

Everyone is affected by the increased cost of doing business and the increased cost of living. Increased expenses lessen our ability or willingness to give to others. I truly understand that. But this is something I want everyone to think about: it’s what I call the thirty second exercise. Think about a time when you’ve been forced to skip a meal. You’re running late for work so you don’t take time for breakfast. But you know it’s not devastating because you can make it up at lunch. Or you have a busier than normal day at work and just work right through lunch. You know you’ll make it up at supper. We’ve all been there from time to time, right?

 Now take thirty seconds to think about someone who skips a meal not because they choose to or because it might be convenient but because the food is not there and they do not know where the next meal will even come from. Try to put yourself in that mindset for just thirty seconds, and then realize that’s the reality many people in South Carolina face every minute of every day.

It’s hard for us to imagine hunger and food insecurity for even thirty seconds, but the reality for so many who struggle in our community is they live with constant hunger and doubt all the time. We can close our eyes and TRY to imagine what their fear must be like, but they in turn cannot just close their eyes and wish it away. They fear there will be no food on the table at each meal and wishing will not change that.

School is out across South Carolina, and financially strapped parents face the challenge of providing an additional two meals a day for their school-age children. Many are now forced to turn to us for a little additional help in providing food for their families. This creates a paradigm of need wherein struggling families find it more difficult to put food on the table and have to come to us, but the same economic forces that created their dire situation in turn increases our expenses and impacts our ability to meet their needs. 

Even before school let out we began to see an increase in the number of families coming to us. In May at our Emergency Food Pantries (EFP) on Shop Road and 12th Street in Cayce we served 5,739 families throughout the month, or 287 families a day. This was a 26% increase over the number of families we served in May last year. Over 12% of those coming in to the EFP’s reported they needed our assistance for the first time, and 52% reported that unemployment was the reason they were forced to come to us. If we project a similar increase throughout the summer once schools let out, then a 26% increase over last year will bring over 7,000 families per month to our doors. And that’s just in Columbia. We also provide for the struggling families in the Pee Dee and the Greenville/Laurens communities, plus more than 400 member agencies in our 20 county area-they are also experiencing increases in demand.

So how can Harvest Hope, caught up as we are in the cycle of the “paradigm of need”, hope to find the resources to meet the needs of so many families across South Carolina? We cannot hope to do it without the support of so many in the community.

Two generous families, the Mungos and the Cassels, have already helped by posting matching campaigns that kicked in $300,000 when private donors did their part. We have seen that people are more than willing to give when they know their contributions will be matched. We would love to find at least two more partners in the business community to follow the examples set by the Mungos and the Cassels and declare their own matching campaigns.

The spirit of philanthropy is infectious and inspires people to acts of generosity when they see their neighbors are moved to action. Help us create a new “paradigm of charitable acts,” and inspire the communities of South Carolina to recognize the suffering of hungry families and move to ensure they have food to put on their tables this summer.

With Blessings and Hope,
Denise Holland


“If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.”  ~ Mother Theresa

I am only one, but I am one.  I cannot do everything, but I can do something.  And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.  ~ Edward Everett Hale