“We are a network of friends working to feed the ill, needy, seniors, and children of northeast Georgia. Our mission is to work toward ending hunger as part of an overall community effort to alleviate poverty.”
Earlier this month the Food Bank of Northeast Georgia took a big step when they broke ground on a new facility in Rabun county. The new facility will be located in the covered bridge shopping center in the former Bi-Lo Grocery store off Hwy 441 in Clayton. This new building is the capstone of a $6.4 million A Fresh Approach to Ending Hunger capital campaign aimed at combating hunger and spurring economic development in northeast Georgia.
It is an innovative approach to the organization’s goal of ending hunger in our region.The facility will be a distribution hub for over 240 partner organizations that serve the hungry in five counties including Habersham. The agencies “shop” for the food and supplies they need to feed the hungry at the food bank. The new facility will allow the food bank to take more donations from farmers whose “leftover” crops or unsold crops can be “flash-frozen” at the new facility allowing for the food bank to accept fresh food for the partner agencies. If you have ever tried to take a fresh food donation to the soup kitchen, you would have found out that the soup kitchen can’t take fresh food because they have no place to store it and the shelf life is too short. The soup kitchen facility does not have the capability to store the fresh food. By “flash freezing” and further processing fresh vegetables, the food bank will allow their partners to use fresh vegetables. Shelf life will no longer be a worry.
But the new facility will provide more services. With a focus on providing local farmers the resources to preserve a portion of their crops that otherwise might have gone to waste, Food Bank President John Becker believes the hub can increase the economic viability of farming in the region. In order to achieve this goal, the new facility will house several kitchens. A commercial kitchen that will allow for larger batch further processing of the garden bounty. Hub Manager, T. J. Smith, explained, “farmers and individuals can take the produce and make products from jams and jellies to simple canning” can be done in the kitchen. This will allow farmers to continue to sell their products, thus adding to the economic success for the farming community. A third kitchen will be a teaching kitchen.
According to Becker, an estimated 125,000 people in northeast Georgia are “food insecure,” meaning they lack reliable access to sufficient quantities of affordable, nutritious food. In the last fiscal year, the food bank distributed nearly 12 million pounds of food through 240 partner organizations throughout northeast Georgia. Despite the dramatic increase in food distribution, more than 6 million pounds of food still is needed to end hunger in northeast Georgia, according to Feeding America, the country’s largest hunger relief charity.
The food hub is made possible with a partnership with the University of Georgia Extension. The food hub currently is seeking farmers from Rabun, Towns, White, Habersham, Stephens, Franklin, Banks, Hart, Jackson, Madison, Oglethorpe, Barrow, Clarke and Oconee counties.
For Habersham alone, the food hub will have a great impact. In the 2012 census for Agriculture, Habersham County has 422 farms. There are 6 agencies that buy food from the food bank. Over the last year, agencies in Habersham County purchased a total of 1,235,845 pounds of food through the Food Bank of NEGA to help bridge the meal gap for food insecure residents and children in Habersham County. Between January and June of 2015, agencies in Habersham County purchased a total of 595,866 pounds of food from the food bank. That equals about 461,912 meals.
If you are a farmer or are interested in assisting in this tremendous project, please contact Tyrie Smith, Food Hub Manager. Phone is 229-326-1797 or email [email protected]
Click here for more information about the Food Bank.
