A request from Cobb non-profits for $1 million in county funding for emergency food aid during the Coronavirus crisis got an extra push Tuesday from pastors.
Several members of the clergy told members of the Cobb Board of Commissioners that food needs for those thrown into chaos and in many cases out of work in the last few weeks is greater than ever.
The Cobb Community Foundation has made the $1 million request on behalf of various non-profits around the county, and lined up a variety of speakers to plead for the assistance.
At a work session on Monday, Cobb Commission Chairman Mike Boyce said he would delay the request after objections from Commissioner Keli Gambrill over how to determine those needs.
At Tuesday’s first regular board meeting in nearly a month—partially via teleconference—Boyce also said the delay was necessary for the county attorney to draw up a document stating how the food would be distributed if commissioners approve.
Some speakers were phoning in and others were present.
“We’re seeing people who don’t know how to ask for food because they’ve never done it before,” said Rev. Roger Vest of First United Methodist Church of Powder Springs.
“They are looking simply to survive.”
His church is among those in the South Cobb area that’s been seeing a major increase in the number of people seeking food, whether it’s at churches or via other non-profits.
Dr. Ike Reighard, pastor at Piedmont Church in Northeast Cobb and the CEO of MUST Ministries, said his non-profit’s Food Rapid Response Program has provided more than 227,000 meals since it was formed six weeks ago.
In addition, more than 16,000 people have been fed already this year, compared to more than around 10,000 in all of 2019.
“That’s how rapid the growth has been for people who need food,” he said.
MUST will be conducting its 25th summer lunch program for students in Cobb and Cherokee counties, feeding around 5,000 children a day, a project Reighard estimates will cost around $750,000.
Rev. John Hull, senior pastor of Eastside Baptist Church in East Cobb, told commissioners that at the Mosaic Church in Marietta, an Eastside ministry located on Austell Road, more than 500 boxes of food are being picked up every week, as are “hundreds of snack lunches” for students.
But the needs for food will continue to increase as the summer months approach. Some of the issues he’s facing, Hull added, are about preparing and serving warm meals for those in need, providing meals for seniors with special dietary needs and getting food to those who can’t get to grocery stores or other distribution points.
“We are going to be in this for the long haul,” Hull said.
He also referenced the work of the Noonday Association, which comprises nearly 130 churches in Cobb and metro Atlanta that provide general assistance to those in need.
Howard Koepka of the Noonday Association said the amount of food his non-profit is providing “three to four times” what it had been before the crisis.
Excess food provided by grocery stores is no longer being provided due to supply chain disruptions and stores not having some food available since the crisis.
He also said donations made to the non-profit also are down.
Cobb Chamber of Commerce CEO Sharon Mason also phoned in to urge the commissioners to provide the funding. Even after the worst of the crisis is over, she said, “Cobb’s most vulnerable populations will continue to be hit hard.”
Boyce said there will be a special-called meeting to take up the funding request, but he did not give a date, saying only it will be “sometime in the very near future.”
He said he wants to have “something to take to the board in a format that they can vote on.”
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