Governor Cooper tours Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- September is hunger action month and this an initiative to help inspire people to take action and raise awareness and help people experiencing food insecurity.

Governor Roy Cooper and NC First Lady Kristin Cooper took part in hunger action month on Friday. They stopped to take a look at the growing garden on the food bank's campus full of fresh produce before heading inside to help volunteers with sorting sweet potatoes

Governor Cooper said 12% of North Carolinas population can not count on a good meal everyday.

"1 in 6 of those people are children. That is unacceptable. We have a lot of work to do, our Department of Health and Human Services is working to administer several programs that help people," said Cooper.

He said they encourage people and programs that help teach people how to grow their own foods.

Jennifer Caslin with the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina said over the summer they served over 300,000 kids in the area who needed a meal during the day.

She said inflation has hit them just like everyone else, but has high hopes as the move into the fall and winter months.

"We've seen you know a little bit of a dip and donations in terms of the larger donations but overall we've been very lucky and 97,000,000 tons of food last year so it's still coming in it may be a little slower than it was before," said Caslin.

They encourage people to sign up to donate or volunteer on their website.