National Guard deploys units to help at food pantries during pandemic

ATLANTA, GA (WGCL) — This week Sergeant Kerry Hatcher received the orders he’d been waiting on for some time.

“It was a really good sort of rush of adrenaline to know that I was getting into the fight and joining my fellow soldiers on the front line doing what I can to help win this battle against this hidden enemy,” Sgt. Hatcher told CBS46.

Hatcher is in the Georgia State Defense Force. It is the volunteer arm of the Georgia National Guard. And that hidden enemy he spoke of, it is COVID-19.

“It’s not that there’s not groceries on the shelf, but there’s just not money in the bank and that’s what we’re working to solve,” Sgt. Hatcher explained.

The virus has forced businesses to close. That led to a lack of income and hungry Georgians. It’s why members of the guard all over the state were deployed to food pantries to pack tens of thousands of meal boxes.

“The line stretched all the way from where we were all the way through the museum parking lot, down the street, and all the way down across the overpass and into town.”

That line was over a mile long.

“We were just thrilled when these troops showed up,” said Eliza McCall, chief marketing officer of Second Harvest South Georgia.

McCall told Sgt. Hatcher’s unit to pack more than 35,000 supply boxes. Each box is an answer to a prayer in South Georgia these days.

“We have among the highest rates in the nation of food insecurity,” McCall explained.

McCall told CBS46 those rates have drastically grown since the Coronavirus showed up.

“We are expected to be down here until the suffering of the citizens of Georgia comes to an end,” Hatcher added.