Local organizations help fight food insecurity

(ALBANY, GA) — With schools in Albany officially closed down for two weeks due to the Coronavirus, Dougherty County School System workers were busy Monday morning, preparing more than ten thousand bag lunches for students who depend on the school system for food.”

Dougherty County Superintendent, Kenneth Dyer tells us,”We dont want being out of school to be more of a burden. So we’re gonna make sure we can meet those needs as we can. Cause we’re a community. It takes a village to help with these kids, they’re our children. And so we want to meet their needs both academically and nutritionally.”

Across the area, food banks, such as Second Harvest in Tifton have seen the problem become worse.

As many of the people who have depended on the help of the food banks to stave off food insecurity are now experiencing it because of the pandemic.

“Food insecurity has obviously become really compounded in this situation. You have families who were on the cusp of food insecure who now are with schools being out. So we’re trying to combat that in a few different ways,” says Second Harvest Chief Marketing Director, Eliza McCall.

With another two weeks at minimum for self-isolation, getting food out to the kids may provide some early challenges.

Superintendent Dyer says,“This is our first time doing this, so times may be a little off, but we’re coming. If we haven’t gotten there, by the time we see it, we’ll be there. As we refine this route, we’ll get more efficient and be able to put more accurate times after we get two or three runs under our belt.”

But that isn’t stopping groups from trying to help keep people from going hungry.

McCall says, “We also will begin tomorrow packing emergency pantry boxes, and we’ll be doing mobile distributions to get those into the community as well.”