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The annual Empty Bowl Luncheon, a fundraiser which also helps to raise awareness about hunger in the community, was held March 17 at The Classic Center in Athens. At the Wednesday gathering, the Barrow County Food Pantry was awarded the 2009 Mobile Food Pantry Program of the Year award.
It is fitting the award is a bowl, and the recognition was accepted by Gwen Hill and Al Brown. Hill is president of the Barrow County Cooperative Benevolence Ministries, which operates the Food Pantry and the Closet Clothes located side by side on East Candler Street in Winder.
Brown serves as the coordinator of the Food Pantry, and was honored in February by the Barrow County Chamber of Commerce for community service, including his food pantry efforts.The mission of the endeavor is to provide food to any hunger household in Barrow County, and some months more than 600 households have been served.
The March 25 distribution will be at Holly Hill Mall beginning at 9 a.m. Volunteers are asked to arrive at 8:30 a.m. and begin pitching in as needed. A number of volunteers have been assisting with the mobile food pantry since its start so the procedure works now like a well-oiled machine.
The tractor trailer loaded with food arrives from the Food Bank of Northeast Georgia and cases of food gets unloaded, unboxed and divided into household boxes which are then taken to the waiting vehicles of those who have lined up and completed the brief paperwork to receive the food.
Each month, 30,000 pounds of food is distributed, usually within a three-hour time span. The monthly distributions are sponsored by organizations, such as the Krewe of Knights, sponsor of this Thursday’s distribution.
