Our Programs
Somers Resource Center
Need help but don’t know where to go? Our Somers Resource Center Exists to help our neighbors navigate the complex web of social assistance in Haywood County. Come share your situation, and we will see if we can help you find the assistance you need.
Rural Food Access Network
We want to ensure that everyone has access to GOOD food in Haywood County. Whether through our pop-up pantry, partner agency support, or our future refrigerated lockers and mobile markets, everyone should have access to the best food around.
Healthy Opportunities Program
(Currently Paused Due to Lack of State Funding)
HCM participates in NCHOP, which allows us to help individuals facing food insecurity, housing instability or inadequacy, or transportation barriers through Medicaid reimbursement. This way address the social determinants of health, preventing adverse health conditions, and reducing the burden and cost of healthcare.
Smoky Mountain Harvest Hub
To address community-wide food security, HCM is establishing the Smoky Mountain Harvest Hub, which aggregates local food, supports local farms, and widens food access while increasing the amount of local food available to everyone in the community.
Community Store
Our community thrift store exists to ensure everyone has access to the items they need at prices they can afford. Additionally, anyone who can’t afford the goods can work with our Somers Resource Center for a voucher to get it for free!
Interested in volunteering your time?
Check out all of the ways you can be a part of HCM!
With a kid to feed and a leaking roof over their heads, Jordan felt out of options. Then she found HOP (Healthy Opportunities Pilot) administered in Haywood County by Haywood Christian Ministry. Once she joined the program, she experienced what she describes as “magic food” that arrives at her house every Wednesday. “Life is tough for everyone, and when we started receiving produce vouchers, it made a life-changing difference. My family and I love fruits and vegetables, and these vouchers have been a lifesaver…
My name is María. At the beginning of 2024, thanks to the HOP program, we were able to repair the roof of our home. It was a great need, as we were living with moisture and leaks that put my children's health at risk. When we were approved for assistance, I felt an immense relief and a renewed sense of hope. I thought that, finally, we would have a safe place to call home.
Staff members from Haywood Christian Ministry joined with over one hundred and fifty other nonprofit representatives in Raleigh on June 4 to call on the NC Legislature to fully fund the Healthy Opportunities Program in the upcoming biennial budget.
Four years ago, a violent attack forever altered Brenda Mancuso’s life when she became a victim of a stabbing. This is a trauma that would leave physical and emotional scars. At the time, she was working at the Steak House inside the Casino. She had never relied on government help in her nearly 60 years. But after the attack, suddenly everything that once was manageable became a struggle. The pain, the fear, and the haunting shadows of PTSD.
Since 2022 HCM has had the honor of being a participant in NC Medicaid’s Healthy Opportunities Program. There has never been a more effective program at producing healthy outcomes through local investment!
Watch Blake Heart, Executive Director, give his remarks in this video about HCM’s inspiring vision for our community!
HCM’s new food plan aims to ensure equitable food distribution across the county, not just in the population centers. Through partnership with other food pantries, through their own pop-up markets that will take place regularly at their original pantry facility and around the county, and through a food ordering and locker delivery system that should be available in the spring, HCM hopes to make food available to everyone who needs it at times and places that are convenient to them.
HCM is developing a brand-new food hub (the Smoky Mountain Harvest Hub). This food hub will help produce fresh local food for charitable and non-charitable distribution purposes. It will also contain a variety of additional features in support of our community food producers and farmers, such as a composting facility, extensive cold storage, and a commercial kitchen.
From demolished greenhouses to washed-out fields, Western North Carolina growers were hit hard by Tropical Storm Helene and have been struggling to tread water ever since. Among the disaster’s many impacts on the area’s agriculture operations has been the shuttering of local restaurants.
When HCM learned about Rosemary, a 10-year-old girl from Ohio, who leads with kindness and donated the money she earned from making bracelets to help provide other families with a good Christmas, we were deeply inspired by her and her mother's kindness. Rosemary began crafting friendship bracelets over a year ago with a simple yet powerful goal: to spread joy and brighten the lives of those around her.
Over the past 2 years, HCM has worked intentionally to form relationships with some of our small, local farms. Our hope was to find ways that we could provide reliable purchasing to them, helping their businesses while also providing access to their food for those who need it. It has been a wonderful experience, and one that we are extremely grateful for.
Jason and his son take great pride in their home, but when Jason became unable to maintain his household physically, the assistance he didn’t know was available for him fell into his lap.
“I went to get a weekly food supplement from the pantry one day, and Bernedice and Theo offered me a way to get further life-changing assistance.”
We spoke to Sara and Dustin of Sustainabillies which is a local farm here in Haywood County to share a bit more about what it's like working with Haywood Christian Ministry.