Three-time cancer survivor starts nonprofit, provides meals for seniors

When Nancy and Robert Hillman founded Common Ground Café in 2018, they envisioned the first donation-based restaurant in Cleveland County that would provide meals to people regardless of ability to pay.

They decided the mission of Common Ground Café would be to strengthen the community, improve the economy, foster local partnership and help those experiencing food insecurity.

Now, the non-profit is doing just that, although in a slightly different way than the Hillman’s had first envisioned. Following a series of hardships, illness and then Robert’s death five months after getting their 501c3 status, Hillman has had to carry on alone.

Now, the nonprofit is impacting the lives of some of the county’s most vulnerable by providing meals for seniors.

Hillman has had to face multiple struggles and has persisted in the face of beating cancer three times and the loss of her husband. Serving others has always been a guiding principle for her.

“The main thing, I want people to follow their dreams, no matter what the situation,” she said. “If you’re still breathing, there’s still purpose.”

A Cleveland County native, after getting out of the military, having her daughter and working in the insurance business, she felt like something was missing from her life. She wanted to serve her community and began volunteering and working, first at the Pregnancy Resource Center and then the Abuse Prevention Council.

Then, she faced the first blow and in 2011, she found out she had breast cancer for the first time. She went through treatments and was cancer free for five years.

“At that time, I decided to focus on school, and I started taking classes at Cleveland Community College,” she said. She earned her associate and then her bachelor's degree in 2014 in social work.

“That opened up my desire to give back to the community even more so than I was doing,” Hillman said.

She decided to continue her education and went on to pursue her master’s degree in 2015.

Then, she received more bad news and found out the cancer had returned.

“It was scary, but it wasn’t like the first time,” she said.

This time, she was mad at how it was disrupting her life yet again.

She was initially told to get a mastectomy but after getting a second opinion from a doctor in Charlotte and months of prayer, she decided to keep her breasts and have surgery to remove the cancer followed by radiation treatments.

“They told me it was in the same location, same breast and it hadn’t spread,” Hillman said.

She said she was in graduate school at the time and when she told her professor, her professor suggested taking some time off and starting back with the next cohort.

“I told the professor, I’m not dropping out. I started with them, and I’m ending with them,” she said.

Hillman would drive to Asheville every Friday for classes and have radiation treatments the other four days.

She said she was determined to push through and finish what she started and not let cancer stop her.

When her husband urged her to rest, she said she couldn’t let the disease win.

Following her graduation, she began working for hospice in Rutherford County.

Then, in 2017, Robert was hospitalized for a month with COPD and congestive heart failure.

She said they had been talking about starting a nonprofit with the idea of feeding people, whether diners could pay or not.

Hillman said they wanted to be the first restaurant in Cleveland County to operate on a donate what you can method. Hillman and her husband both attended a summit in Pennsylvania which taught people how to get started.

They got their 501c3 for Common Ground Café in the spring of 2018 and wanted to start out with pop-up events. Five months later, Hillman said her husband died. She said with the support of her daughter and her father, she kept going.

Then, the unthinkable happened, and in 2019, she found out the cancer had returned a third time.

Hillman said the first time she had cancer she was scared, the second time she was mad and the third time she thought she was going to have a nervous breakdown.

“I had so much loss,” she said.

She had to have a double mastectomy and chemotherapy.

“To me, I felt I had lost my womanhood,” she said. “It was too much.”

She said it was also a wakeup call on the toll stress had been playing on her body.

“I was always in a helping profession. I’ve always been a giver and put 110% into everything I do,” she said, “I think my body internalized stress.”

Hillman said she went through her cancer treatments during COVID-19.

“It was a lot of fear, a lot of tears,” she said.

She began journaling her thoughts and feelings, trying to pull herself out of a depressive state. That led to her creating and selling notebooks. She said that process helped provide an outlet and redirected her stress.

Throughout this, the nonprofit was still on Hillman’s mind and Common Ground was able to partner with the local rescue mission and Boys and Girls Club to help provide meals and offer a culinary program. In 2022, they partnered with the Central United Methodist Church and helped support them in providing meals to the needy.

But it wasn’t until Hillman’s father got sick that the nonprofit found a new purpose.

After he left the hospital, she realized there was a need for hot meals for seniors.

She said he was mailed meals, but he didn’t know how to prepare them or what some of the food was.

“I saw that it was a missed opportunity,” Hillman said.

Last year, Common Ground Café started off with providing weekly meals for 18 seniors.

This year, that number has increased to 76.

Hillman said when they first started out, they only served African Americans ages 70 and up because they were the most marginalized and underserved in the community.

“But we kept having people ask for assistance,” she said.

They’ve opened it up to others in need, and the youngest person they now serve is a diabetic with vision loss who is 56.

Hillman said they find people through word of mouth and referrals from social workers who found out about the Common Ground Café and what they do.

She said each person who participates fills out a paper with the foods they like, foods they don’t like and any allergy or sensitivities they might have, dental issues and health problems that might impact diet, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart issues or diverticulitis.

Not only do they want the meals to be healthy, but they want the recipients to enjoy them.

Hillman said the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

“One person said it’s like Christmas morning when she opens it and sees what she’s getting,” she said.

Another woman said it was the only hot meal she got all week.

Hillman said many seniors don’t feel like they have a voice, and the act of getting to choose their menu and have a say in what meals they receive, gives them a little bit of that voice back.

Common Ground currently has three rotating cooks. They spend Thursday’s prepping at Washington Outreach Ministry and finish up on Friday, packing up the meals, and delivering them. The cooks and volunteer coordinator get a stipend, and drivers are given an Ingles gift card for gas.

The funding comes from grants and fundraisers. Hillman said this year, they only budgeted for 60 seniors, but they couldn't turn people down and ended up with 76.

She said she has always prayed to go where God was telling her to go, and with the assistance of additional grants and the need in the community, she feels like she’s found her place.

She still has dreams of expanding in the future, and the dream is to still have a restaurant where meals are offered at low cost or a donation-based system.

“Our ultimate goal is to get our own stand-alone café,” Hillman said.

She said they need sustainability and a way to generate income to keep it going.

For more information on the program, people can call 704-981-0991.

People can donate by sending a check to Common Ground Café, PO Box 672, Shelby, NC, 28151. Hillman said they are in the process of redoing their website, but once it is complete, there will be a donate option.

This article originally appeared on The Shelby Star: 'If you're still breathing, there's still purpose'