The site is one of Raleigh’s best-kept secrets and home to an organization addressing a significant community challenge — food insecurity among children.

Each day around 9 a.m., For The Kingdom’s kitchen staff arrives at its dining hall to prepare hundreds of free meals that are delivered to Raleigh residents later that afternoon.

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About noon, staff begins plating those meals and drivers are ready to deliver dinner through FTK’s Feed the Block initiative to daycare centers, individual homes and apartments, and to the homeless population throughout the 38128 ZIP code, primarily Raleigh. Meals range from orange chicken and rice to soul food and each comes with a vegan or vegetarian option.

The program is part of FTK’s goal to feed 10% of children ages 18 and under in the 38128 five meals a week. More than half of children in 38128 (54.5%) live at or below the poverty line, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

That’s 1,800 people. Through mid-March, the nonprofit is serving about 600 people daily. The hope is this program will slowly change the narrative and long-term growth of Raleigh.

“One of the main joys of this job is knowing that it’s free but it doesn’t look free,” said Lakeisha Edwards, FTK’s director of food solutions and partnerships. “These are high-quality meals that are created by trained chefs. It just brings me joy to give people access to that when you know this may be the only opportunity they may have to that type of nutrition.”

The work is done in the middle of FTK’s 100-acre site at 4100 Raleigh-Millington Rd. — an under-the-radar campsite used as a hub to make food to feed Raleigh residents during the COVID-19 pandemic.

FTK was founded in 1997 by Memphis Leadership Foundation on the old Stax Party House site. It’s primarily used for hosting youth summer camps and literacy programming, church retreats and community meetings through various office spaces.

“It’s like an escape in the city for the city,” said Torrey Bates, FTK’s executive director. “We’re the best kept secret. We’re like Gatlinburg in Memphis.”

The nonprofit’s location and design represents “God’s kingdom on Earth,” an aspect crucial to its initiative. It’s part of larger framework to help the community through its Christ-like values and vision.

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Bates moved from the Atlanta-area to lead FTK three years ago. When coronavirus hit Shelby County, he and other FTK staff had a meeting to discuss how they could benefit their community during the pandemic. It was a short conversation as the Feed the Block program came to life. 

“Once we quiet stomach-grumblings, a lot of the issues we see in kids change,” Bates said. “When your refrigerator is no longer empty, when you don’t have to worry about dinner, when those things are no longer the issues, kids can begin to focus on the things that really matter.”

In the pandemic’s early months, FTK distributed hundreds of breakfast and lunch meals to kids in Raleigh. Once Shelby County Schools resumed breakfast and lunch distribution last summer, the nonprofit pivoted to dinner — an intentional decision to fill a need for children not receiving that third meal or fewer each day. 

The organization underwent several weeks of training, reallocated funds and staff for the program because Bates said, “If we’re going to do it, let’s do it well.”

Another key aspect of its program was reaching out to those in need of the meals. That’s part of Donta Walker’s role as FTK’s director of outreach and community engagement.

“Doing that contact work, doing the things that go unseen sometimes,” Walker said. “Making sure you’re out in the community. Knocking on those doors. That you’re sending the emails, making those calls, leaving the voicemails.”

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It was also important for the organization to build trust with community members when delivering the food, Edwards said.

“The first time you come, yeah, some of them are going to stay back, some of them will come forward,” she said. “The next time you come after you saw what they ate and they see it didn’t kill them, they see you’re still smiling and you’re still willing to help, when people see that consistency that builds that trust.”

FTK successfully applied for Tennessee CARES Community grant funding, which it received in September 2020. The nearly $500,000 allowed them to expand Feed the Block and increase its staff from seven to 35, Bates said.

Community organizations such as Community Foundation of Greater Memphis, Christian Community Foundation and local churches have played a crucial part in Feed the Block’s success, Bates said. Even more encouraging to him is children who benefitted from the meals early in the pandemic are now volunteering in the same program.

It’s part of Bates’ vision for Raleigh — that it’s best kept secret is eventually reflective of the entire neighborhood.

“When you’re riding down Walnut Grove you run into Shelby Farms. You go ‘there’s Shelby Farms,’ but it’s not such a WHOA, because everything around it is so abundant looking, so good, so beautiful, so well-kept, so invested in,” Bates said. “When they divested in Raleigh, you can see the results. When you pull up on our campus, you see something that looks different. We now believe the food (program) will allow us to begin, for our campus, that reflection process for the rest of Raleigh, because of the partners that are getting involved.”