Food Pantry Director Dorothy Stephens oversees the First Love Kids food distribution in Sandersville, Ga. On Tuesday, four days before First Love Kids, Inc’s spring food distribution, a Howard Sheppard truck full of food from Golden Harvest Food Bank pulled up to the agency on Hines Street in Sandersville, Ga. On Wednesday, volunteers began building boxes and lining them up on the rows of tables snaking across the agency’s floor. On Thursday, a volunteer team from the Sandersville Rotary Club and First Love Kids worked all day to fill the boxes with nonperishable food. “We come in [...]

Representatives from WoodmenLife Georgia Jurisdiction break ground at Golden Harvest’s new garden plot, which will house 12 raised beds to grow produce for meals at The Master’s Table Soup Kitchen plus a greenhouse and grape arbor funded by WoodmenLife. Along a downtown stretch of Walton Way sits a brand-new garden plot, its tilled earth rich against a backdrop of concrete buildings. This new extension of The Master’s Table Garden adds 12 raised beds, a greenhouse, and a grape arbor to the garden’s capacity. “Our garden expansion efforts all come back to increasing access to nutrition,” says Ashley [...]

Sally prepares boxes of food for local families in need in Sardis, GA. Sally jokes happily with a fellow volunteer as she deftly packs a box of food at Sardis Baptist Church Food Pantry. From her sunny demeanor, you would never guess what her family has been through, or that they will be receiving a food assistance themselves at the end of the day. “This place got us through the hard time, and gave me new hope and new joy,” Sally says. Sally, age 67, is raising her 3 grandchildren after her daughter passed away when the [...]

School Counselor Tiffany Atkins gives Darren his weekend meal pack and a smile at Washington-Wilkes Primary School. 3rd grader Darren loves to read and learn about computers. If you ask him what he wants to be when he grows up, he says, “Maybe a doctor!” Darren and his brother live with their mom, the family’s sole caretaker. She wakes up early each morning to work at a local restaurant. The family has been struggling for months on her meager earnings. Tiffany Atkins, Darren’s School Counselor at Washington-Wilkes Primary School in Washington, GA, says she sees this situation [...]

Gloria and Journey Community Church volunteers share a hug and a prayer at the church’s monthly Mobile Food Pantry. In the seven years Gloria worked for Meals on Wheels, she never thought she would find herself in need of food assistance. But that changed when her youngest son passed away and Gloria and her husband of 30 years adopted his daughter. Though her husband and oldest son both work to support their household of seven, money is tight – especially after the birth of Gloria’s great-grandchild. With the cost of diapers and childcare added to their monthly [...]