BOONE, N.C. — A bag of frozen goods and a box with much more is ready to be packed into one of the food lockers by Aaren Grante. Grante works for the Hospitality House in Boone. The locker was purchased by a grant.

What You Need To Know

  • The hospitality house put a food locker in Bethel

  • It is the first of its kind in rural America

  • Families are given a code linked to locker with food

"Each client gets a refrigerator unit and a cooler unit that they can just input the code on the screen here and the unit will pop open," Grante said.

Grante has worked for the nonprofit for two years but about a year ago started as the local food coordinator. They are in charge of helping clients in this area get food and filling the locker twice a week.

After typing in the special code, the family has access to the food. Grante says they chose Bethel because it's a food desert. The food locker was placed at the elementary school.

"With food pantries you probably live close to a food pantry. If the closest food pantry to Bethel is 40 minutes away, for people who struggle with transportation, that's not really convenient. If somebody lives right down the street, there I have some clients who will walk to this locker in the snow, because whatever they need to do for their children is what they are going to do," Grante said.

The lockers are filled with all local items purchased with the Watauga County Food Hub and placed in lockers for each family to pick up. Families must sign up and be given a locker.

"They don't have a food store in 10 miles or so of them," Grante said.

They say this is something that's very needed here and may expand in the future to other areas of the High Country.

"Helping bridge the gap between the local farms and then the community itself with helping with nutritional needs, helping with transportation issues," Grante said.