Middle Georgia food bank bridges gap for the ‘food insecure’

While his fellow students carried armloads of peanut butter jars and bottled water, 13-year-old Matthew Mullis packed applesauce, chips and water into boxes.

“The Bible says you should always help people,” the First Presbyterian Day School student said. “It’s nice to just help people and see how they use it.”

Mullis and 19 classmates volunteered at the Middle Georgia Community Food Bank recently, helping sort provisions at the 31,000-square-foot facility. The food bank’s service area includes 24 counties and stretches from Jasper County south to Telfair County, operations manager Mike Morrison said.

Executive Director Doug Rohme said the food bank helps feed about 100,000 people a year, although there are 150,000 people in its area who are “food insecure.”

“There are parents who may skip meals so that their children can actually eat,” Rohme said.

Many of the food bank’s recipients are employed, yet they struggle to pay their day-to-day bills. Last year, the food bank delivered more than 8 million pounds of food.

Nearly 75 percent of its food is purchased through the Georgia Nutrition Assistance Program, a state-funded program.

Donated food makes up just 3 to 5 percent of the food bank’s warehouse capacity, Rohme said. The remainder is food considered unsellable at “big box grocery stores” that’s still salvageable, he said.

In order to meet the needs of the food bank’s 250 partner agencies, the warehouse needs to be filled to between 60 and 75 percent capacity, Rohme said.

During summer 2015, capacity dipped to about 30 percent, due in part to late arrivals of ordered food. Food also was delayed by a hold placed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture “in case of natural disasters,” he said. Agency representatives were still coming, but they took out less food. To avoid another shortage, Rohme said he’s ordered enough food in advance so the warehouse is at 80 percent capacity.

“Our inventory turns over every, I guess, 45 to 60 days,” Morrison said. “But it’s full for the most part.” Besides working with partner agencies, such as Macon’s Salvation Army, the food bank also has its own in-house programs that help feed low-income recipients.

Volunteers from local agencies logged more than 19,000 service hours last year, mostly packing boxes, sorting foods and cleaning. With more than a dozen groups — nonprofit organizations, churches and schools — visiting the food back every day for supplies, volunteers and monetary donations are needed.

“For every $1 we receive in a donation, we could provide at least eight meals,” Rohme said. “We could stretch your dollar a lot further. A lot of people want to do that tangible thing and donate food ... but money could go a lot further with a lot less.” Moving forward, Rohme said he has goals to move more nutritious meals into the warehouse.

The food bank recently received a $690,000 grant to double the size of its freezers so it can hold more perishable food items. Warehouse lighting is being updated to LED fixtures with a $31,000 grant.

“When we do things, we don’t do them for this week or this month. We’re doing six months in advance,” Rohme said. “We’re just that accountable resource in the community.”

This story was originally published May 3, 2016 at 6:48 PM with the headline "Middle Georgia food bank bridges gap for the ‘food insecure’."