The Family YMCA of Greater Augusta is more than fitness classes and swimming lessons. In Augusta, the organization feeds an average of 7,200 people per day in 10 Georgia and South Carolina counties in a program recently renamed Cheryl’s Kitchen Food Program.
“We started this six or seven years ago,” said Danny McConnell, the Family YMCA’s president and CEO. “It blew up in the pandemic.”
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Cheryl Wirt, the organization’s chief financial officer, saw the needs of families during the summer. During the school year, their children received breakfast and lunch at school, leaving the families to cover the evening meal. But during the summer, families had the added expense of those two extra meals.
What started with food at the after-school programs ballooned when school was out of session for the pandemic, and it now reaches adults and senior citizens as well, said Wirt.
“During the pandemic, we realized it was not only children needing food, but it was parents and senior citizens,” she said.
Early on, the program averaged 200 meals a day with a maximum of 75,000 in a year. During the pandemic, it served one million meals, she said.
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Not only does the Family YMCA offer on-site food pickup and feeding through its camps and after-school programs, but the organization has 15 buses that go into lower-income areas and distribute food. People can sign up for blessing bags, which contain shelf stable items for seven meals; a Golden Harvest Bank pantry box, which depends on family size; or a weekend meal option which contains three breakfasts and lunches.
As the demand increased, the Family YMCA needed more food and turned to the Golden Harvest Food Bank for help.
What a lot of people don’t realize about the Golden Harvest Food Bank is that the organization is mainly a supplier of food to other agencies with food pantries, said Amy Breitmann, the food bank’s executive director. It’s not a frontline food pantry although it does operate the Master’s Table Soup Kitchen downtown.
“It’s a hub,” she said.
And without the food bank, said Wirt, the Y’s program would not be able to reach as many people as it does.
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Some food through Cheryl’s Kitchen comes through a USDA program. As a recipient of federal funds, the YMCA goes through audits and other processes to comply with guidelines, she said. People receiving USDA food must meet certain criteria as well.
As part of some of the pandemic-enacted legislation, some of the USDA programs have expanded guidelines, which will be in place into 2022.
Just last week, Cheryl’s Kitchen expanded into Washington, Ga. with the USDA arm, and another expansion is on the horizon with new mobile locations.
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Breitmann said one good thing about the Family Y program is that it offers food pick-up until 7 p.m.
Many of the families needing food assistance are working, so having that later pick-up helps them out, she said.
To learn more about the Family YMCA and its program, visit thefamilyy.org.
Charmain Z. Brackett is the Features Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach her at charmain@theaugustapress.com.
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