340,000 miles and counting: Former Buncombe teacher honored for Madison feeding program

WOLF LAUREL - Though Elizabeth Hamrick has been distributing food to Madison County families for more than 12 years, she never expected to be recognized for her good deeds.

But the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution honored Hamrick with the "Excellence in Community Service" on Dec. 13.

"It's a great organization in that they do a lot to help others," Hamrick said. "They keep the spirit of what the forefathers wanted to be done - that they would help people and do that kind of thing. That's how my journey started and sort of ended with this."

Dating to 2011, Hamrick volunteers more than 35 hours per week - more than 1,900 hours per year - collecting donated food from Fresh Market stores and helping distribute them to low-income housing residents in Madison County.

The 75-year-old Hamrick grew up on Wolf Laurel and worked for 40 years in schools - roughly half the time as a librarian and media specialist and the other half in the classrooms.

She worked at A-B Tech and taught first grade and eighth grade at Asheville Christian Academy, as well as at a K-8 school in the Charlotte area, where her husband was employed in banking at the time.

Hamrick also worked 10 years at Hominy Valley Elementary School in Enka.

Her service to her community was only just getting started following her retirement from education.

"The feeding program started (after) a lady who I had known through church work with my husband," Hamrick said. "I did music for our Methodist church for more than 30 years. I decided when I retired that I wanted to go to Fresh Market to pass out coffee. That was my goal, but they told me that was against the rules unless I was full time.

"The one manager there told me he had an opening for Sunday for delivery out to Madison County. I quickly told him I'd be glad to do that. So that's how I got started, and the ball sort of started rolling. They knew that I'd be there, and that I did things the right way. I've been there nine years, but before that, my friend and I did a feeding program anywhere we could have a large crowd. We not only would feed them, but we had places where they could get clothes and food. It was a little like having a large sale. We would go as far back in the mountains of Madison County as we could."

Eventually, Hamrick's friend said she had had enough, and decided to quit.

"I said, I'm not going to quit, because people need this food, and they don't have a way to come. They don't have transportation, and they are sick and they're needy and they're hungry, and their children need help. So, I just fell into doing all that.

"It's really been a blessing for me, because you see people that would never have had fresh food or fresh vegetables. I fund myself because I can go and come, and if I have to go back for a different donation I can go and do that without having to take somebody home and then coming back. It's been a wonderful blessing."

Both Hamrick's teaching roots and her desire to provide for others are callbacks to her childhood.

"My mother was a wonderful high school teacher. I had a lot of teachers in my family at the turn of the century that worked in the schools with no lights, no nothing. So, I always was doing papers, and my mother loved to make us memorize Shakespeare. I grew up like that.

"My family had a lot of families live on their farm. They took care of them all - they fed them, they clothed them, and they helped them. They had nice homes to live in - my dad had a lot of acreage up here in the mountains near Wolf Laurel. I was always cooking, and my mother had two kitchens in the house, and we'd cook for the people. It was just a way of life and I enjoyed it. That's how it got started."

Community impact

When she started the program, Hamrick said she spoke to Mars Hill Baptist Church's Tommy Justus about what areas of the county most in need.

Justus referred Hamrick to Marshall Housing Authority and Madison County Housing Authority's Ivy Ridge Apartments in Mars Hill.

Linda Payne is Marshall Housing Authority's executive director and is in charge of 50 housing units, ranging from one- to four-bedroom apartments.

"It's low income, and rent is based on a resident's income," Payne said. "That rent includes your lights, water, heat, everything."

Payne, who has been working with Hamrick for more than 10 years, said she only remembres Hamrick missing one day, and that was only because Payne told her not to come in due to the weather conditions.

"We can't say enough about Elizabeth," Payne said. "She missed one day, and that was because there was probably 3 feet of snow. So, she said, 'I'll just come tomorrow, if you don't care.'"

According to Payne, Hamrick's donations have been an immeasurable benefit to so many Madison residents, especially the county's older population.

"I've heard a lot of clients say, 'I only get $25-$30 worth of food stamps each month. It's not worth going up there to fill out the paperwork for that small amount,'" Payne said. "They come down here, and if they just get a meal or two, that supplements them all week long."

For many of her clients, the food donation is an opportunity to sit and visit with friends, too.

"We've got people that would not miss it," Payne said. "They'll come down here and share pictures of things that they've cooked. You never know what (Hamrick) is bringing either. Me and (Joanie) will sample it. We're the guinea pigs.

"But a number of clients have showed us pictures of things that they've gone back and tried, that they would not have bought normally. She brings everything - vegetables, fruits, and throw it all in a box. She's been doing this for many years, and people just love Elizabeth."

Hamrick's most important work may be in the connections she's helped establish for clients through the nexus of the feeding program.

"She is such a kind person," Payne said. "We had one man in a two-bedroom apartment, where upstairs is the bathroom and the bedrooms. I didn't have a one-bedroom apartment to put him in at the time. She gets out and gets all these people to donate, and she bought him a chairlift to go upstairs, him and his 85-year-old girlfriend. We've got a picture of her going up the stairs with her incline.

"If she sees a need: shoes, clothes, TVs. I mean, I can't begin to tell you what all Elizabeth has done. I know all I have to do is say, 'Elizabeth. I need something,' and if she can't get it herself, she's got connections. It's good to have people with connections. She's been a blessing."

Crystal Holder is executive director of Madison Housing Authority, which operates Section 8 rental assistance in the county, and manages 40 housing units at Ivy Ridge Apartments in Mars Hill.

Holder said Hamrick's impact on Mars Hill families has been evidence throughout the 10 years she has worked with Hamrick.

"About a week after this past Christmas, when Fresh Market had gathered up all their Christmas stuff, we have a family who just moved here from New York, and she said, 'Oh, wow. This is like Christmas. I haven't had anything like this in 10 years.'

"It's a treat for our folks. When our folks have to budget their money in order to make their meals stretch, it's nice every once in a while to get a mystery on Friday mornings."

As there are a lot of children in Mars Hill, Madison Housing Authority does a Christmas celebration each year at Ivy Ridge Apartments.

As with the Marshall Housing Authority, Hamrick has helped to bridge connections in Mars Hill, according to Holder.

"The Marshall Presbyterian Church had been providing gifts for the children, and for years now, Elizabeth had secured funding for us to do a gift from Santa," Holder said. "With those extra funds, we could have some generic gifts so they don't think Santa's forgotten them.

"Recently, Elizabeth was able to help us gather resources so that we were able to put out a blanket notice to our families and say, 'If there's a certain need you have, let us know. This is what the donors from the community have said they want to do.' So, yes, she is quite a networker."

In Holder's view, she places Hamrick "right up there with Bill Welch from the Lord's Harvest," in that they both have served their communities without wanting any recognition for their service.

That generous nature, like her education background and her desire to provide for and feed others, was passed down to her from her family, Holder said.

"They don't want any recognition, and they have a mission," Holder said. "I think a lot of that ... Elizabeth's roots are in Madison County, up on Upper Laurel where she grew up. Her father was a farmer who had tenant farmers. That's the way he ran his shop: He may have been the landowner and had all these workers for him, but he also made sure that they always had what they needed.

"I think it's just a picture-perfect example of how compassion gets passed down from generation to generation. That's just mountain living, I guess. The perfect example of mountain living is that everybody helps everybody. It's what the world has lost today."

340,000 miles and counting

In her time operating the food distribution program, Hamrick has tallied more than 340,000 miles on her Toyota Highlander.

According to Holder, she joked with the Madison Housing Authority executive director that the car was "just getting warmed up."

"She's driven more than 340,000 miles making sure the folks in Madison County (are provided for)," Holder said. "And it's just not food. I know that there's another lady that she takes to Beacon of Hope once a week. Then there are little old men that she takes boxes of treats, too. It's something to bring a smile to their face."

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Cole Jackson was a store manager at The Fresh Market on Merrimon Avenue for a good chunk of those 340,000 miles. Jackson wrote the Daughters of the American Revolution a letter of recommendation on Hendrick's behalf.

"She is absolutely a joy to work with and this store loves having her here whenever she picks up donations," Jackson said in the letter. "She is everything we could ever ask for in a donation vendor. She has taken the time to get to know our team, she always makes sure to follow our company guidelines and she loves, loves, loves what she does.

"The joy when she picks up donations is very evidence and I am so happy to work with her. She is an asset to your organization and I hope to work with her for a long, long time. If there were more sweethearts in the world like Elizabeth, it would be a better place for sure."

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Former Buncombe teacher honored for Madison feeding program