Originally dedicated to pantomime and the arts, First Fruit Ministries began its current mission in 1998 when it started serving homeless people through street outreaches.  While the CEO, Rick Stoker, was performing mime on the sidewalks of Wilmington, he saw a need to serve the homeless community filling those same streets.  He began by delivering hot meals and supplies to runaway children living under the buildings near the Cape Fear river. As First Fruit served runaway children, we found that they were connected to women and men working in prostitution, who were involved with gang members, who would often use homeless people in their operations. The original street feeding outreach, using hot meals as an invitation to build relationships with gang members and those working in prostitution, expanded into our current mobile street feeding program serving over 14,000 plates a year.

Between 1999 and 2008, as each group was identified, a program developed to respond to their needs. First, the Wilmington Dream Center: Transitional Housing Program was created in 2000 to move homeless women and families into permanent housing and self-sufficiency.  Next, the food box distribution began to serve the low-income neighbors of the ministry.  Other programs followed.

First Fruit Ministries bought and renovated a former shopping center in Long Leaf Park to host its various homeless and low-income service programs.  The transitional housing program, expanded to serve 12 homeless women and two families, was moved to the new ministry campus from its original location on the north side of town; the food pantry was further developed and is now the largest distributor in New Hanover County serving 1,000 people a week; a medical center was created in collaboration with the New Hanover Community Health Center to reach underserved, uninsured residents of the south side of town; and the Adopt-a-Block program was piloted to begin to revitalize a strategic neighborhood in Wilmington.