Veggies For Vets: Fayetteville local creates community garden to help former troops dealing with food insecurities amid COVID-19
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (WTVD) -- A Fayetteville local is on a mission to feed veterans here in the Sandhills region with a community garden.
Stacey Buckner is the creator of Off-road Outreach, a nonprofit that provides hot mobile showers to homeless veterans in the area.
Back in March, when the pandemic was heating up, Stacey knew more veterans would be dealing with food insecurities.
So, she teamed up with Service Source, another veterans nonprofit in Fayetteville, who offered a large plot of their land to Stacey.
There, with the help of other nonprofit sponsors, Stacey created the "Veggies For Vets" community garden.
For the last several months, she's been harvesting fresh fruits and vegetables, handing them out to men and women in need, along with delivering boxes to other veteran nonprofits like Veterans Empowering Veterans.
Stacey told ABC11 they've been producing up to 12 pounds of produce a day.
"With COVID, with the pandemic, and food scarcity, I think that Veggies for Vets has really shown the community and our veterans that we're not going to forget about them, and that it's really easy to do...to give back," Buckner said.
Stacey is already planning to plant fall produce in the coming weeks and said they want to expand the garden once the pandemic finally ends.
