Today, Jason Brown and his wife Tay, owners of First Fruits Farm, a farm with a mission to aid hunger relief in eastern North Carolina, announced two significant milestones; this year the farm celebrates five years of serving the community as well as breaks the one million pound mark for food donated. Founded in 2012 by Jason, a former NFL Offensive Linemen, First Fruits Farm’s first harvest was in 2014. During that year, 100,000 pounds of sweet potatoes and 10,000 pounds of cucumbers were donated to organizations such as the Interfaith Food Shuttle, the Society of St. Andrews, and the Food Bank of Eastern North Carolina. 2019 marks five years of the farm’s efforts to aid hunger relief in North Carolina, and the program has expanded its footprint and partnerships. In addition, this fall the farm celebrates breaking the one million pound mark for food donated to the community. First

The Jim Allen Group presents the 14th Annual Gobbler’s Run 5K on November 28. With all proceeds benefiting the Wake Forest Boys & Girls Club, this family-friendly Thanksgiving Day event is a great way to bring families together and support the community. The 3.1 mile loop is an easy stroll through downtown and historic Wake Forest. Push your kids or bring your dog – strollers and pets are welcome. You’ll get a race T-shirt and be able to eat more turkey without the guilt! The 5K race will start and finish at the Boys & Girls Club at 325 South Wingate Street in Wake Forest. The course is mostly flat, looping through the historic residential and business districts. There will be one water stop at the half-way point located on North Main Street. You can view a course map on our website. The Gobbler’s Run is capped at 2,300 runners this year.  Register early

The Wake Forest Police Department has scheduled its next Civilian Response to Active Shooter Events (CRASE) class for Tuesday, Oct. 29. The session will take place from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. inside the Wake Forest Renaissance Centre at 405 South Brooks Street. There is no cost to participate, but registration is required at http://bit.ly/WFPD_CRASE. Class size is limited to the first 100 people to register. Please note: Every participant must register individually – one person per form. On the evening of the class, attendees may be required to show proof of registration prior to entering the Renaissance Centre. Led by Wake Forest Police Lt. L. Danforth, the session will teach participants what to do if confronted with an active shooter event. Designed and built on the Avoid, Deny, Defend (ADD) strategy developed by the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT) Center at Texas State University, the class will provide strategies, guidance

The Town of Wake Forest is pleased to announce that Debbie Dunn is the new manager of the Wake Forest Renaissance Centre of the Arts. She succeeds Cathy Gouge who resigned earlier this year after serving in the role since 2015. As Renaissance Centre manager, Dunn will be responsible for coordinating performance and visual arts programming, exhibits and educational initiatives, while also overseeing facility rentals. She will also partner with community groups, businesses and individuals to develop arts initiatives for the center and community. Before joining the Town of Wake Forest, Dunn served for eight years as the Cultural Arts and Events Manager for the Town of Garner. There she established the “It’s Showtime!” performance series, managed several Town events and worked with community partners on a variety of public art projects. Dunn’s signature event in Garner was the Scotty McCreery Homecoming Concert for the 2011 American Idol television show

Safety is something most people look for when choosing where to live, and Wake Forest residents may be in one of the safest areas in North Carolina, according to a new study. The Town of Wake Forest was recently named the 15th-safest city in the state by BackgroundChecks.org. The online background check portal gave each North Carolina city (with a population above 10,000) a score on its Safety Index, which combines FBI crime statistics and law enforcement employment numbers to calculate the safety of a given city. Twenty-four cities in the state, including Wake Forest, earned a 0.24 or above, indicating a high level of public safety well above the U.S. average. With a population of nearly 45,000 BackgroundChecks.org gave Wake Forest a Safety Index score of 0.39. Pinehurst ranked first with a Safety Index of 0.6, followed by Archdale (0.58), Holly Springs (0.54), Mount Airy (0.54) and Elon (0.51). To view

The Wake Forest Presbyterian Church will sponsor a community-wide meeting from 7 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 24, to discuss the possibility of opening a pay-what-you-can restaurant in downtown Wake Forest to provide an additional resource for those in our community without reliable access to affordable nutritious food. Maggie Kane, the executive director of A Place at the Table in downtown Raleigh, will be the keynote speaker to talk about the mission of her pay-what-you-can restaurant and what it has meant to those in her community since opening in January 2018. The meeting will be held in the sanctuary of the church, which is at 12605 Capital Boulevard. Please tell other people who may be interested in this discussion and share the meeting information with them. Please RSVP to Kevin Meese at kjmeese20@gmail.com. #

Applications are now being accepted for participation in the 2019 Wake Forest Christmas Parade. Application forms are available online at http://bit.ly/WFChristmasParade and at the Wake Forest Town Hall, 301 South Brooks Street. Interested participants may submit their application online or by mail to Wake Forest Christmas Parade, c/o Wake Forest Downtown, Inc., 301 South Brooks Street, Wake Forest, NC 27587. Entries postmarked by Friday, Nov. 1, will be considered for inclusion based on the number of entries needed for each category. Accepted entrants will be notified via email no later than Tuesday, Nov. 12. Payment for entry is due at the time of application. Parade packets for accepted participants will be mailed Tuesday, Nov. 26. The packet will include vehicle passes, parking information, and other pertinent event details. Sponsored by PowerSecure and presented by Wake Forest Downtown  Inc., this year’s Wake Forest Christmas Parade is scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 14, at 1

The Wake Forest Rise Against Hunger event will be held Saturday, Oct. 26, from 8 a.m. to noon at the Wake Forest United Methodist Church. Organizers say the volunteers will pack about 55,000 meals. The organizers will start setting up at 8 a.m. and volunteers are asked to check in between 9:30 and 10 before the approximately two hours it will take to pack the food and clean up afterward. The organizers said, “We request that all participants bring canned food as a donation to Hope House, the food pantry for Friendship Chapel Baptist Church. “We are requiring all participants to register for the event as we are expecting participants from more than 20 organizations as well as the general public.  We have capped the number of volunteers for meal packing at 250.  Please find below the link for registration.  You can make a single entry and then adjust the

Tri-Area Ministry Food Pantry announces that its third annual Stop Hunger, Feed Hope dinner-auction-fundraiser to combat hunger will be held Friday, Oct. 18, at the Wake Forest Presbyterian Church on Capital Boulevard. Tri-Area wants to raise $75,000 to increase its capacity and to enable them to add fresh foods like eggs, fruits and vegetables to the non-perishable items it loads into bags for the 750-plus families – 2,400 people – it helps each month. Volunteers distribute about 12 tons of food a month. They have a number of sponsorships for the dinner and auction as well as different ads for the program. Sponsorships begin at the titanium level of $10,00 or more and go down to a bronze level of $500. Ads range from $75 to $300. Most businesses and many people in the Wake Forest-Rolesville-Youngsville area have received the two-page letter outlining Tri-Area’s goal, needs and sponsorships. If you

There will be two plate dinner events during September that will raise money for local charities and community outreach. The first was a fish fry at Wake Forest United Methodist Church from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 13. The second dinner at Hope House, 334 North Allen Road, on Friday, Sept. 20, will give people a choice of either chicken or flounder filet, green beans, potatoes, hush puppies and slaw for $8. Again it is either drive through or eat in. The profits will go toward Hope House’s various outreach programs, which include food distribution, book bag distribution, the Christmas Angel Tree, summer camp and tutoring and mentoring. For more information go to www.hopehousewf.org. #