CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - Kristen Irwin and her mom, Michele Irwin, pulled up to a single-story brick home on Glory Road in Mooresville the morning of April 15 with a box of groceries tailored to the homeowner inside.
“He doesn’t like fruits and vegetables, and that box back there is loaded with them,” Kristen Irwin said of the food packed in her SUV. So they unloaded a different box, including snacks they know he enjoys.
Minutes earlier, the Irwins picked up the food at FeedNC, the Mooresville nonprofit where they’ve volunteered for eight months as “Food Movers.” That means driving the food to several homes each Wednesday.
Besides the boxes of groceries, recipients also received a pound of chicken and two family-size frozen meals this day.
About 200 drivers who need food for themselves and their families also pulled into the alley beside FeedNC, where volunteers loaded the boxes into their cars.
But nearly 40 FeedNC clients are homebound and rely on the Irwins and about 20 other volunteers to drive the food to them.
AN ESSENTIAL SERVICE
The Irwins wore masks as a precaution against the coronavirus on their three deliveries on April 15.
As for the virus, “it made me want to volunteer more, because a lot of people had stopped volunteering,” Kristen Irwin, 48, told the Observer. “If God wants me to volunteer, He will protect me.”
FeedNC lost about 40 or 50 volunteers, most of them older adults who felt they should stay home during the pandemic, Executive Director Lara Ingram said. That represented about 60% of its volunteers, she said.
FeedNC has since welcomed an equal number of new volunteers, including adults who are temporarily laid off and teenagers whose schools are closed during the pandemic, Ingram said. FeedNC is deemed an essential service under government coronavirus stay-at-home orders, she said.
In just the past week, FeedNC distributed food to 1,200 people in 314 households and served more than 200 lunches. Recipients include several hundred Mecklenburg County residents, Ingram said.
‘GOD IS GOING TO PROTECT US’
“Never a second thought,” Michele Irwin, 75, said of continuing to deliver meals to the homebound. “God is going to protect us, or He would never have us doing this.”
They’ve built a rapport with the people they visit and look forward to stopping by, the Irwins said.
They’re sad they can’t enter homes anymore to spend time with people, they said. FeedNC now requires them to leave the boxes at the door because of the pandemic.
Still, recipients such as 67-year-old Lavet Witherspoon are welcome to come outside and chat.
The Irwins look forward to seeing his forever smile on their weekly visits to his home on Glory Road, off Charlotte Highway about 5 miles north of downtown Mooresville and FeedNC.
On April 15, Witherspoon greeted them wearing a mask a neighbor gave him. He is homebound because of several health conditions, he said.
“It’s really good to see y’all,” he told the Irwins after stepping outside. He told them about a friend who needed food, and they promised to visit the friend.
“It’s folks like these that really make a difference, and will be there for you when you need it,” Witherspoon said. “Good people, I’m telling you.”
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