Meet the Keynoter

Our guide for this event will be the Rev. Jill Staton Bullard. Not only is Jill a deacon at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in downtown Durham, she’s the nationally recognized co-founder and Executive Director of the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, a food rescue organization serving the central area of North Carolina.

She started the Food Shuttle, which is headquartered in Raleigh, with her friend Maxine Solomon in 1989 and was the first active volunteer. The shuttle’s early operations were out of Jill’s house, with freezers filling the garage and paperwork filling the dining room table. She has overseen its growth from a small grass roots movement to a driving force in the fight against hunger, currently employing a fleet of 11 refrigerated trucks, a staff of 24, and a workforce of 400-plus regular volunteers who offered 34,000 volunteer hours last year. The Food Shuttle offers food service in two locations, providing meals to over 300 people each day. During the summer, over 1,400 people receive meals each day, as the Food Shuttle is the primary provider of Summer Food Service Program meals in the Triangle region to needy children.

She has served on the National Council of America’s Second Harvest, the national Board of Directors of Society of St. Andrew, the North Carolina Food Policy Council, the Park Scholarship Advisory Council at North Carolina State University, and the Steering Committee of the North Carolina Hunger Summit. She chaired the America’s Second Harvest Service Planning Committee for Food Rescue and is currently a member of the Contract Task Force. Jill is a founding director of NC Hunters for the Hungry, having served as president after serving as treasurer for three years, and has served on the national board of Foodchain.

Her work has been featured in national textbooks, magazine articles and books on the anti-hunger movement. She has been awarded the Exemplar Award from The University of Notre Dame, the University of Notre Dame Award of the Year for Community Service, The William C. Friday Park Scholar Award for Excellence in Leadership, the Salvation Army’s Others Award, the Individual Award for Outstanding Service to the Citizens of Raleigh by the City of Raleigh Human Relations Commission, and received the 2006 Triangle Business Journal’s Women in Business Award. She was ordained in the Episcopal Church in June of 2008.

Feeding our souls so we are better equipped to do the work God has given us to do will be the Rt. Rev. Michael B. Curry. Bishop Curry will give the homily at Holy Eucharist on Friday, November 6th. The morning devotion on Saturday will include a specially designed Stations of the Cross for hunger.

Join us, won’t you?