Steve Nowakoski

February 16, 2021 Program

Steve Nowakoski is Executive Director of Haywood Christian Ministries. Haywood Christian Misnistries is a Christian organization based in Haywood County which distributes food, clothing, and financial assistance.

Steve had a lot of great things to say about how our community has pulled together to help those in need.  During the Pandemic, they only distributed food, but the store is reopened now.  In a normal year Haywood Christian Ministries serves food boxes to about 12,000 people.  Since March they have served 62,000 people making an estimate of over 80,000 for the year.  Normally they were serving a hundred people a day and now it can be up to 250 people a day.  They distribute food to all who need it, but they still interview for financial need.  They have done all of this with just 7 staff members and 7 volunteers often working late into the night.  They pack the boxes and then put them in trunks of cars as cars drive through.

The Emergency Food Assistance Program, (TEFAP) a federal program that helps supplement the diets of low-income Americans has helped provide boxes of food with 40 items in them.  Haywood Christian Ministries has been a center for distribution in Western North Carolina.

Haywood Christian Ministries uses our town buses to distribute boxes.  A bus can hold 50 to 100 boxes.  They are looking into moving the food operation to a new building they would build on land they own right on site.