The Shelf-Life of Trauma

People have always brought their grief to the big white house at 306 South Main Street in China Grove. For many years, families held funerals beneath its high-pitched roof. Now, community members gather in its wood-paneled rooms to talk about some of their most painful lived experiences in a novel approach to food assistance.

These workshops are hosted by the Main Street Marketplace and Meeting Place, which was formerly a food bank called the Main Street Mission. China Grove is a town of under 5,000 people located along I-85, where the Charlotte metro area gives way to winding country roads and acres of farmland. 

Beginning in the late 1800s, people who once farmed found steady work in nearby manufacturing plants and mills. But in 2003, Kannapolis-based Pillowtex Corporation declared bankruptcy, laying off thousands of workers and plunging families throughout the region into crisis. Many community members found themselves lined up behind the big white house to receive boxes of food from the Mission. 

From its opening in 2002 through 2020, the Mission was China Grove’s sole source of emergency food aid. Hope Oliphant joined as an employee in 2014, and by the time she became director in 2019, she had realized she was seeing the same people in line for assistance month after month. 

She was inspired to spearhead the organization’s transition from a food bank to the Marketplace, which operates a tiered-price market where the public can purchase meat, pantry staples, and fresh produce, including hydroponic lettuce from an on-site garden. That transformation also included workshops that address topics such as poverty and Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACEs.

“To create lasting change, we have to address root problems,” Oliphant said. “Nine times out of ten, the root problem is trauma.”

In interviews, community members reported positive experiences with Marketplace’s new trauma-focused approach. But not everyone was pleased by the new direction, and some charitable groups were contractually unable to get on board with it.

Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina pulled its support in accordance with a standard agreement that bars the nonprofit from partnering with organizations that sell food rather than give it away. Kathy Helms, Second Harvest’s finance director, said Marketplace didn’t apply for a contract renewal in light of the rules.

Prior to the switch, Second Harvest’s donations accounted for 70 percent of the Mission’s food inventory.

Among volunteers and individual donors who took exception to the new strategy, concerns frequently centered on its effectiveness.

The NC Healthy and Resilient Communities Initiative, a public-private initiative that supports local organizations, has been collecting data for two years on eight indicators of community resilience to evaluate whether this kind of holistic program works (Marketplace is not one of the organizations supplying data.) But measuring success is complicated when the emphasis is on long-term outcomes.

“A lot of the things we want are generational changes,” said Mebane Boyd, Resilient Communities Officer for The NC Partnership for Children, which leads the statewide Smart Start network. “[It’s] hard to show we’ve moved the needle.” 

A New Approach

Trauma-informed care is gaining traction with schools, courtrooms, and service agencies across the country. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration lists four characteristics of the approach: realizing the widespread occurrence of trauma, recognizing trauma symptoms, responding appropriately, and preventing further retraumatization.

“It’s about knowing what trauma looks like in a baby, a teen, or an adult, and responding in a way that helps,” Boyd said.

A pivotal moment for the trauma-informed care movement was the 1998 publication of Kaiser Permanente’s Adverse Childhood Experiences study. This landmark research drew from over 17,000 surveys to find that people who have early experiences of abuse or neglect face an increased risk of diseases like cancer and diabetes, as well as mental health issues and negative outcomes in relationships, education, and employment. 

The study revealed that early childhood trauma is more widespread in the United States than was previously thought, with nearly 40 percent of participants reporting at least two early adverse experiences. In the years following, Boyd said that researchers have expanded their focus to include a lack of affordable housing, living wages, and green spaces.

When Oliphant started remaking the food bank, she didn’t know the transition aligned with a larger crusade. She mostly trusted her gut that emergency food boxes weren’t working.

Oliphant and her staff began to question what they put in the Mission’s emergency food boxes. While pre-packaged and canned goods are more shelf-stable than fresh foods, they also have ingredients that can exacerbate health issues like heart disease or diabetes. 

Marketplace staff mounted an informational campaign, held meetings, and offered tours of their facilities. But still, many community members were suspicious of replacing free food boxes with a tiered-priced store. 

“People looked at what we were doing and said, ‘They’re not helping people anymore,’” she said. 

Some community members have come around on the vision, knowing the stress that can come with navigating a complex array of local service organizations.

“The way that people make ends meet can be traumatizing,” said Danesha White, a member of the Marketplace community. She’d previously turned to food banks near her home in Salisbury for assistance but said, “Bless their hearts. Sometimes stuff is expired, and it’s just thrown in there.” 

As Boyd put it, trauma-informed care is grounded in “providing services in a way that people don’t feel belittled for having to ask.”

Healing Through Food

The Marketplace offers tiered pricing, wherein shoppers who can afford to pay higher-than-retail prices subsidize shoppers in the middle and lower tiers, who pay at or below retail price. 

The market allows them to put fresher foods on the shelves. Oliphant believes it is one of just three similar initiatives nationwide.

But the shift has been costly. The organization’s annual budget has surged from $160,000 to $750,000. Much of the added expense is in payroll, since Oliphant insists on paying a living wage to employees in the market and garden rather than relying on volunteers.

Oliphant’s decision to reduce the organization’s volunteers in favor of paid employees was also a subject of contention with community members who enjoyed volunteering at the Mission. She pointed out that the shift created nearly a dozen new jobs, several of which are held by former workshop attendees.

Today, around one-third of the Marketplace’s funding comes from small donations, with the rest arriving in the form of grants and gifts from bigger nonprofits like United Way and the Cannon Mills Foundation.

Marketplace shoppers aren’t required to attend workshops, although many program participants pick up groceries after their group sessions next door. Shoppers fill out a one-page form with check boxes for income and family size, then receive a key fob that codes their tier for future purchases.

Nichole Smith is a Marketplace community member who once faced eviction despite working full-time as a teacher’s assistant in a special education classroom. As a single woman without children, she said, “There’s no help for you. You’re out there by yourself.”

The Marketplace approach has been a vast improvement from agencies that require filling out forms that she said, “feel like sharing your entire life.”

Putting Trauma-informed Approaches to Work

At a weekly workshop called Getting Ahead, participants share a meal and then discuss cultural and political aspects of poverty along with their personal experiences. Participants talk about how they’ve been treated by middle- or upper-class people because of how they look or speak. 

At first glance, it may seem like the curriculum tasks people who are struggling with poverty to adapt to societal expectations. But White credited the class with showing her helpful alternatives to learned behaviors.

“Growing up rough, I saw fights,” she said. “Once there’s a disagreement, it gets physical.”

She struggled to escape that pattern as an adult, resulting in frequent unemployment. “I didn’t want to kiss anybody’s ass,” she said. But in the workshop, participants shared similar experiences and helped her find different ways to express herself.

“It’s not about what’s wrong with them,” said workshop facilitator Mandy Earnhardt, “it’s about what happened to them.”

Measuring the success of a program like this can be a challenge, but organizers are hopeful they can demonstrate its efficacy. Tracking how many people a program serves is easy, but data about their experiences is often gleaned slowly from surveys and one-on-one conversations. “We wish we could measure human connection,” Boyd said. 

Oliphant has recently partnered with several local organizations on a program that gives participants discounted meal kits, a free YMCA membership, and individualized support, along with a blender and spice kit.

Through the program, participants will have their blood sugar and cholesterol tested, and they’ll report on their mental health via surveys administered by Rowan Health and Wellness. Oliphant is optimistic the data will validate the Marketplace’s approach and sway donors who like to see positive outcomes.

The collaborative program will conclude in July 2024. According to Oliphant, statistics showing how well the interventions worked should be available by early 2025. 

Correction: The name of the organization Mebane Boyd works for has been corrected.

Joyce Nash is a freelance writer and poet whose work has appeared in the Hello Gloria newsletter and Nine Cloud Journal. Her background ranges from journalism to fitness instruction and spans the East Coast to the West. In her free time, she enjoys reading, cooking, and going for afternoon walks.