Kay Carter - CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank

Kay CarterKay joined Second Harvest Food Bank as CEO in January of 2004. During Kay’s tenure at theFood Bank the total pounds of food and household items distributed have increased from 7million pounds to almost 90 million pounds annually.Kay has established a set of key goals that have served as a guide for the staff as they work toend hunger in the 24-county region of North and South Carolina served by Second Harvest.Nutritional pounds including fresh produce, meat and dairy products have grown by 482%, anaverage of 23% per year. Pounds in these categories, which people living in poverty can leastafford but need to stay healthy, are vitally Important in improving the overall health ofour community.Volunteer hours at Second Harvest have increased by 44% per year since 2004. During themost recent fiscal year, volunteer hours donated to Second Harvest totaled over 317,000.These hours saved the Food Bank almost 8 million dollars in labor costs, funds that are beingredirected to feeding more people in need.The number one goal of Second Harvest during Kay’s tenure has been to end child hunger inour region. These programs including the backpack program, Kids Café programs and theschool based mobile pantry program have grown an average of 58% every year since 2004.Today, Second Harvest is the largest nonprofit in the health and human services sector in the greaterCharlotte region with annual revenues including food donations of 171 million dollars.Prior to joining Second Harvest, Kay served as the Director of the York County Department ofSocial Services for seven years and as a City Manager for ten years. Kay holds a Bachelor’sDegree in Political Science from Winthrop University anda Master’s Degree in PublicAdministration from the University of South Carolina.Second Harvest Food BankWho We Are and What We Do:We provide a regional distribution warehouse and branches that supply food and grocery items to charitable agencies that assist people in need. We provide training, technical assistance and hunger education to our partner agencies.Counties Served:We serve a total of 24 counties - 14 counties in North Carolina including Anson, Burke, Cabarrus, Catawba, Cleveland, Gaston, Iredell, Lincoln, Mecklenburg, Montgomery, Rowan, Rutherford, Stanly and Union. We serve 10 counties in South Carolina including Abbeville, Anderson, Cherokee, Greenwood, Lancaster, Oconee, Pickens, Spartanburg, Union, and York.Agencies Served:SHMETROLINA provides food for over 950 partner agencies including soup kitchens like Urban Ministries, emergency pantries like Nourish Up, homeless shelters like Uptown Men’s Shelter and Center of Hope, senior programs, and low-income daycares.Food Distributed:SHMETROLINA annually distributes over 88 million pounds of food and other household items throughout our 24 county service region. Over 54 million pounds of our annual distribution is fresh produce, meat and dairy.The Need: 12.1% of our service area population, almost 483,000 people, live in poverty including over 151,000 children and 57,000 seniors. Our emergency pantries, soup kitchens and homeless shelters continue to report significant increases in requests for assistance over last year. These numbers do not incorporate our new counties in SC. Where Our Food Comes FromApproximately 68% of the food we distribute is donated, 12% is purchased and 20% of the food comes from government commodities. These numbers do not incorporate our new counties in SC.How We Distribute Food:We distribute food through our main warehouse in Charlotte and through branches in Hickory (Catawba County-NC), Salisbury (Rowan County-NC), Spartanburg (Spartanburg County-SC) and Anderson (Anderson...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.