Every summer, hundreds of families who rely on school nutrition programs are faced with food insecurity between the end of the nutrition programs and the first day of school.
That’s where the Feed the Gap program arrives.
“Our goal is to make sure no child goes hungry between the end of the summer feeding program and the beginning of school,” said Ware Children’s Initiative (WCI) Executive Director Susan Haddock. “We’ll distribute 20,000 pounds of food over those few weeks.”
Ware County Schools’ Family Nutrition program began its summer feeding program on May 14 at locations throughout the city and continued until July 14. However, students don’t return to school until Thursday, August 6.
Haddock said the program begins preparing for the whirlwind of those few weeks months in advance, recruiting volunteers, seeking support, and lining up storage and transportation.
“Feed the Gap couldn’t happen without the help of our amazing community,” Haddock said.
As an example, she said this year Johnny Mitcham and One Church organized Coffee for a Cause this year, a friendly fundraising competition among coffee shops, to help cover the cost of the food. A total of $2,400 was raised, with Kristy Foreman and Elliano’s Coffee coming in as the winner at $2,122.
In addition to locally raised money, Feed the Gap received funding assistance from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Georgia Nutrition Assistance Program (GNAP), which delivers its funding directly to the food supply source. Once funds were in place, food was pur-chased from Second Harvest of South Georgia, the leading hunger-relief organization in the region and the largest rural food bank in the state.
GNAP has several guidelines food distribution programs must follow, one of which is items need to be delivered by the end of June. Because Feed the Gap doesn’t have a warehouse, National Cap and Sportswear of Waycross donated storage space. ScotBilt Homes loaded the pallets of food, Lee Hardware and Building Supplies transported them, and Osburn Cycle Salvage did the unloading.
Once it was time to start packing the bags for distribution, the food was moved to the large covered portico of Winona Park Church where WayGreen and Hollow Oak Farms partnered with WCI to store until delivery.
“Over the course of two days, 35 volunteers packed 1,500 bags of food,” Haddock said. “Each bag contains food equal to 10 to 14 meals, including items like pasta, soup, vegetables, chicken, tuna, and peanut butter.”
Feed the Gap food bags were distributed across the community beginning July 15 until the start of school Thursday.
Comments