After 17 years, a nonprofit casualty?

The crowd had grown large before the food truck was unloaded. Dozens of men and women, children on their hips and boxes in their hands, ready to be filled. A standard Friday morning.

Rosa Marion choreographed the chaos, as she does each week at Harvest Center, as she hopes to keep doing if money allows. She's not sure how much longer that will be.

“You get in line right there,” she instructed one woman, then surveyed the scene. “We'll have 300 here today,” she said, then said it again – “three hundred” - and shook her head.

After 17 years of feeding the poor and homeless in Charlotte's Genesis Park neighborhood, Harvest Center may have to close down. It's one of many nonprofits – unaffiliated with United Way – that face their own struggles for money.

Pastor Barbara Brewton Cameron founded Harvest Center in 1992 and helped run it until her death last year. Now in the hands of Marion, Cameron's sister, Harvest Center feeds more than 1,800 families a month with pantry items from Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina, plus more than 5,000 hot meals a month to the poor and homeless.

The number of needy here has risen more than 30 percent in the past year. Donations have dried up. “People just stopped giving,” said Marion. “They don't have anything.”

Harvest Center gets its food from Second Harvest, and volunteers help staff breakfast and lunch on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, plus Sunday breakfast. But there are staffing expenses, building expenses, youth programs, drug-addiction programs. Executive Director Blease Turner says the bills average $41,000 a month.

While most nonprofits operate with up to six months of operating costs in reserve, Harvest Center is down to less than a month's. Already, officials have laid off three part-time staffers and eliminated a program that drove seniors to and from the center for food. Other staffers have been asked to take unpaid time off. “We're in dire straits,” Turner said. “We've been there before, but not like this.”

At the least, the center will close next week – temporarily, officials hope – to regroup.
Outside, Marion handed out a half-gallon of milk. She dodged a volunteer. She placed a hand on a passing shoulder.

“If I have to, I'll stand out on the street and hand out this food,” she said. ‘If we close these doors, where are these people going to go?”



For more information on Harvest Center, call 704-333-4280.

One shortfall - no longer short

This week, members of Covenant Presbyterian Church read about millions in United Way cuts to Charlotte's nonprofits. Among the programs hurt were four at Uptown Shelter of Charlotte, including the emergency shelter, which lost $28,597.

The shelter offers 268 beds a night to Charlotte's homeless men, and Executive Director Carson Dean says his agency committed to not reducing that number despite the cuts.

But, he says: "We were making that commitment a little on faith."

Yesterday afternoon, Carson received a call from Covenant. The church's grants committee and Division of Mission wanted to donate $29,000 to cover the United Way shortfall.

(Full disclosure: I'm a member of Covenant but wasn't involved in the decision to donate the money to Uptown Shelter.)

"This is fantastic," Dean says. "It's a huge relief."

Says Covenant member Janet Delery, who is chair of Covenant's Division of Mission: "We are grateful to have an opportunity to make an impactful contribution to meet the needs of the poor in our community. By acting quickly, perhaps we can further our impact on the city by being a catalyst for others and setting a standard of leadership."

NBC's Al Roker - Lending a Hand in Charlotte

NBC television personality Al Roker is in Charlotte this morning to give away a truckload of goods.

The gift will be part of Roker's "Lend a Hand" campaign, in its eighth year traveling across America. Roker will make his presentation to the Community School of the Arts at Uptown's Spirit Square, where the school is based.

The Observer's Lindsay Ruebens is with Roker and will be giving us updates this morning. She writes:

10:35 a.m. - "A transformative event for us": The Penske trucks were finally opened to cheers from onlookers after 8:30 a.m., revealing $369,000 worth of basketballs, guitars, keyboards, Crayola products and other musical and artistic equipment.

With charities all over the city hurting, Community School of the Arts Board of Directors Chairman David Page said this donation will have an effect on the community.

"It's a transformative event for us," he said.

By the end of the event, Al was upstaged by another star -- singer Colbie Caillat. She was a surprise performer with children from the First Baptist Church West after-school program choir. The group performed her hit song, "Bubbly."

8:32 a.m. - Sprinkle thrilled: WCNC's Larry Sprinkle, between breaks, says he's been having a ball this morning.

Sprinkle said he first met Roker in 1997, and Roker still remembered him this morning.

"He's a great guy, as great a person you'll ever meet. He's very accommodating," Sprinkle said.

Sprinkle said it was a nice surprise that Charlotte was in the lineup of names among other big cities in the country that are in this week's tour. He thinks it's great that small organizations are getting big name recognition and help through the series.

The most exciting part, Sprinkle said, was when Roker was right behind him saying, "And here's what's happening in your neck of the woods."

"And there he was, right here in our neck of the woods right behind me!" Sprinkle said. "It was great. It's just been very special having him here."

7:52 a.m. - Star deaths likely will delay Charlotte broadcast: Roker said the mood is a bit more somber this morning with the deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. "This is a much more subdued version," he said.

Something similar happened on the Lend A Hand tour two years ago when the donation giveaway coincided with the Virginia Tech shootings. Roker said they taped the celebration and ran the tape a day later. The same will probably happen for this taping.

"It wouldn't do justice to the tone of the show, or to the Community School of the Arts," he said.
He said it hasn't felt like a long week of traveling, but he'll probably feel it this weekend when he gets home.

"At least there's Bojangle's chicken and such," he said.

Roker, known for being food lover, said he ate at Mert's last night - rice and beans with turkey sausage. He also sampled the cornbread and chicken wings. Excellent, he said.

So far in Charlotte, Roker has seen the airport, SouthPark Mall and Uptown. "It's been spectacular, he said. "I'm a big fan of the light rail."

7:12 a.m. - He's here: Al Roker is in our neck of the woods this Friday morning - and he said this is his first visit to the Queen City.

He is in Charlotte as a part of his annual "Lend a Hand Today" tour across the country and is expected to make a donation to Community School of the Arts.

At 6:45 a.m., he and WCNC weatherman Larry Sprinkle had the cameras rolling and and the small media coverage crowd laughing.

Roker told Sprinkle he's got the best name a weather man could dream of. "That's the best name for either an ice cream man, a weather man, or a urologist," he said.

Three Penske trucks were in sight, as well as a Gibson guitar bus.

A delegation from Charlotte Emergency Housing in navy t-shirts was one of the first groups to wait, but others came solo to watch.

Linda Jackson, 56, made a sign when she got to Spirit Square, where the show is taping, that read, "Hi Frederick, I love you, but Today is Big Al's Day on Today's Show!"

"I love Big Al; I always watch him on the Today Show," she said.