Since 2018, Raleigh nonprofit A Place at the Table has provided pay-what-you-wish meal service out of its brick-and-mortar location off West Hargett Street. Starting this October, Table will take to the road with The Travelin’ Table food truck.
Organization founder Maggie Kane hopes that a food truck is the answer to some of the nonprofit’s challenges.
“We have been so lucky,” says Kane. “How can we touch more people? How can we bring our mission on wheels? How can we do outreach?”
Kane says that, before the pandemic, about 70 percent of people paid full price while 30 percent paid reduced prices. These days, that ratio has flipped. Kane hopes that the revenue from food truck events—company parties, weddings, catering opportunities—can help maintain and spread the mission of the original restaurant.
“Table continues to be pretty, pretty full, which is a great problem to have,” says Kane.
Since the pandemic, for-profits and nonprofits alike have reconsidered their business models amid changing consumer habits. At Table, 2020 put a strain on resources as more people—many out of work—came to rely on its meals.
In April of that year, Kane and her staff served more than 250 free meals a day.
The USDA reports that 44 million Americans are food insecure, or living in a household where everyone lacks access to enough food for an active and healthy life. North Carolina is the 10th hungriest state in the country—more than 1.2 million people were food insecure in 2021, Feeding America reports.
“Hunger is not going away, [there] continues to be more and more people who are experiencing poverty and who need a meal and need a community,” says Kane. “We see anywhere from five to 10 new people a day, including families.”
This isn’t the first time Table has tried something new. In 2022, the nonprofit organized a food truck rodeo and launched PLACE cards instead of meal tokens, hoping that the credit card-like payment method would be another step towards destigmatizing receiving free meals.
Kane acknowledges that it’s an uphill battle, but still has faith in the community. Earlier this year, Wake County contributed $120,000 to A Place at the Table. Anyone can donate their money, or their volunteer time, to the operation.
“We have great supporters, and I know a lot of other organizations do as well, but the need just continues to increase every year,” says Kane. “A lot of folks are struggling and I think that we just have to, as a community, understand that and really support each other…Support something that is meaningful to you—an organization, or a person that needs support. It doesn’t have to be [Table]. It can be anyone, we have some killer nonprofits in the Triangle.”
Reach Reporter Chase Pellegrini de Paur at [email protected]. Comment on this story at [email protected].
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