ASHEVILLE - Over the past decade, a Western North Carolina nonprofit continues to change the fate of community members by providing hope through health initiatives.
Eight years ago, TaTanisha Davis hit a plateau, struggling to reach the next milestone on her weight loss journey.
Davis, an Asheville resident, said she’d weighed 405 lbs. before losing more than 160 lbs.
A local medical professional recommended she connect with Bounty & Soul, a Black Mountain-based nonprofit dedicated to improving healthy eating and living access and options through its free, weekly community markets and educational healthy eating, lifestyle and fitness programs.
“I didn’t know what I was doing wrong because I was going to the gym exercising. I’d cut out a lot of fast food,” Davis said. “When I started at Bounty & Soul, I started working with the health coaches.”
Davis shopped for fresh food at the market and attended diabetes workshops. She credits Bounty & Soul for providing the education and tools she needed to push past the stagnancy and adopt healthier, effective lifestyle practices.
She learned how to improve her eating habits and find healthy alternatives, which helped her achieve her goal of 195 lbs.
“Every two weeks, I would lose two to three pounds just by doing what they were teaching me to do that I didn’t think about doing,” Davis said.
In 2020, Suzanna Jayne said she moved from Utah to Black Mountain to care for her ailing mother. A farmer friend told Jayne about Bounty & Soul, including their free, healthy food services.
Jayne said nutrition was the top priority for her mother’s recovery. After four years of eliminating canned and processed foods and fresh ingredients from Bounty & Soul’s weekly markets, she said there was a dramatic improvement in her mother’s health.
“My mother’s got the best numbers that she’s ever had since her doctor has known her,” Jayne said. “Now, her A1C is perfect; her sugar is no longer in the danger zone. It’s from eating that food at Bounty & Soul and the consistency.”
Jayne, now a Bounty & Soul market volunteer, said Bounty & Soul is the epitome of caring for and unity in the community and teaching life skills to younger generations.
“While we struggle financially, we’re able to have Bounty & Soul show us that light at the end of the tunnel,” Jayne said.
Facing food insecurities
In 2014, Executive Director and Founder Ali Casparian launched Bounty & Soul, motivated by her struggles with food insecurity and other life challenges after moving to the Black Mountain area.
She received assistance from other organizations and food banks, which inspired her to create a program to help make fresh, healthy food affordable and accessible to families. And to reduce food waste by providing direct distribution from local food partners to community members.
Casparian rallied others who had resources and skills to lend, and Bounty & Soul began to take shape, beginning with a no-cost food market.
“We celebrate food. We celebrate it in a way where it’s shared with dignity, beauty, abundance and color,” Casparian said.
Sourcing support
Jayne said a common misconception is that people must meet a certain low-income bracket to benefit from the services. She said she encourages people to use the services, attend programs and contribute, if possible, whether by donating children's books or volunteering.
Jayne said she’s made many friends through the organization, and they often volunteer together on tasks like home food deliveries.
Bounty & Soul provides weekly home grocery delivery through the Healthy Opportunities Pilot Program’s Healthy Food Box service.
Davis’s volunteer duties include boxing children’s meals. She has assisted in kitchen operations and cooking demonstrations.
Jayne attended cooking demonstrations where she learned new recipes and how to cook with unfamiliar ingredients, like eggplants.
“They taught me to cook vegetables I said I would never try or never eat because I was cooking them wrong,” Davis said. “They taught me how to do that and try different seasonings to open my varieties of more vegetables and ways to cook them.”
Other resource providers set up booths at the markets, which is how Jayne said she found an insurance provider.
Casparian said the volunteer system goes both ways wherein Bounty & Soul volunteers assist with needs at area farms.
“It’s like when they say, ‘When you’ve got gratitude, you are full,’” Jayne said. “When my mom wakes up each day, she’s got fresh fruit, and she’s got beautiful flowers which sit next to the photo of my dad. It’s one more day that she feels loved.”
Healthy food impact
Bounty & Soul’s Rooted in Health program includes cooking demonstrations, education on nutritional resources, food preservation, gardening, sustainability, self-care, stress relief and more, available online and at the markets.
Bounty & Soul’s staff includes 14 full-time and part-time workers, plus program contractors. Casparian said there are nearly 500 active volunteers (logging about 2,600 volunteer hours in 2023) and 72 partnering local farms, community gardens and home gardens. Plus, a growing list of donors, sponsors and individual supporters.
The three community markets are hosted weekly in Black Mountain and Swannanoa.
Casparian said about 40% of attendees are from the greater Asheville area, about 38% are from the Black Mountain and Swannanoa areas with others coming from other Western North Carolina counties.
Davis said the markets were most helpful during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s wonderful how they help with food resources,” said Davis, who receives a food box every Tuesday. “It’s hard to get help with food and being on a diet or eating healthy. It helps people have access to food. Without having them in my life, I don’t know if I could still stay plant-based.”
In March, Bounty & Soul purchased and moved into a 10,000-square-foot building for its food intake and distribution services, and cooking and health & wellness classes for adults and children.
A Community Food and Wellness Hub is intended to open in three to five years to serve as a community center with food markets, a teaching and commercial kitchen, classes, local food aggregation, health practitioners, flex space and a community café.
Farm to Fork fundraiser
On Sept. 18, Bounty & Soul will host its 10th-anniversary fundraiser, Farm to Fork, from 5:30-8:30 p.m. at Yesterday Spaces, 305 Sluder Branch Road in Leicester.
Guest chefs will include J Chong (J Chong Eats), Nick Barr (Chai Pani), Peter Pollay (Posana), Brian Crow (Chestnut/Corner Kitchen), Ann Forsthoefel (Annie’s Culinary Garden), Michael Reppert (The Blackbird) and Cay Scheuer (Smash Events).
The evening is to reflect on and celebrate the community and the organization's successes, and to garner support for future works.
“We work at the intersection of food, farms and health,” Casparian said.
Bounty & Soul Markets
- 3:30-5:30 p.m. Thursdays, 205 Route 9, Black Mountain in the former Bi-Lo parking lot.
- 3:30-5 p.m. Wednesdays, 216 Whitson Avenue, Swannanoa. (Spanish-speaking but all are welcome.)
- 3-4:40 p.m. Tuesdays, Root Cause Farm, Fairview.
Bounty & Soul’s Farm to Fork dinner
Where: Yesterday Spaces, 305 Sluder Branch Road, Leicester.
When: 5:30-8:30 p.m. Sept. 18.
Cost: $200 per person, $210 with shuttle service from Swannanoa.
Info: The evening features dinner, tastings, cocktails, music, storytelling and more. Purchase tickets at bountyandsoul.org .
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Tiana Kennell is the food and dining reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Email her at tkennell@citizentimes.com or follow her on Instagram @PrincessOfPage. Please support this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times .
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: WNC residents credit nonprofit for improving health, better living
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