The Baldwin County School District and Communities in Schools united to feed families in a dire time of need during Baldwin’s winter break.
On Dec. 9, community stakeholders in Milledgeville were notified that the Middle Georgia Food Bank would no longer be supplying food to the Milledgeville-Baldwin County area, along with 24 other counties. The truck was expected to arrive on Dec. 21 which gave Baldwin Family Engagement Coordinator Shonya Mapp and Communities in Schools Executive Director Janet Cavin a little over a week to find out how they could make up for the lost delivery.
At the time of receiving this terrible news, about 250 families in Baldwin County were receiving the Mobile Food Pantry option three times a month.
'We're now in a critical position right before Christmas, when schools are being let out and some of our students would not have enough food to eat during the holiday break,' said Cavin.
Mapp, who attends the Collins P. Lee Harrisburg Community Center weekly meetings, immediately contacted Baldwin County Superintendent Dr. Noris Price.
'We talked about the situation and how it would have a great impact on our students here at our schools,” said Mapp. “So, we brainstormed and came up with some ideas of how we could help our families and students.'
Fortunately, Cavin had been notified the previous day that the Georgia Communities in Schools affiliate had an additional $6,000 that it needed to spend by the end of the year.
'So, when we found out that the food pantry wasn't coming, we had the money, but we didn't have the ability to, all of a sudden, go out and purchase food,' said Cavin. 'Had we known in November that the mobile food pantry was not going to be coming back in December, that would have given us plenty of time to make a plan but now we were a week and a half out.'
Fortunately, Mapp and the Baldwin County School District were able, through the partnership with Communities in School, to help.
'It was an immediate response,' said Mapp, 'I reached out to the school counselors of each school and gave them instructions on what we needed to do to make this happen quickly. By all of us coming together, we were able to go out and provide food for our students in need.'
'All of this took place in about a 36 hour period,' added Cavin. “With about a dozen people all working together. It was just something that was going to weigh heavy on a lot of people's hearts.'
Through Baldwin County's personal and professional connections with Communities in Schools, access to nutritious food was provided to approximately 40 families during a time when students would not have had access to nutritious meals provided at their local schools.
-Contributed by Eric Jones, coordinator of school and community relations