Nearly the entire staff of Sen. Jon Ossoff’s office visited Augusta, Wednesday morning, to help Golden Harvest package and distribute food.
Hurricane Helene took a toll on the food bank as well, with many of its staff suffering damage to their homes and losing power, putting Golden Harvest in the kind of vulnerable position usually suffered by those it services.
“In our 40 years of existence, we’ve never gone through anything like this,” said Nathan Folks, vice president of development with Golden Harvest, noting that its soup kitchen downtown on Fenwick Street closed for the first time in its history. “We were shut down for three days because we literally couldn’t get anybody there.”
The nonprofit is part of Feeding America, a sprawling network of some 200 similar charities, that was able to spring to Golden Harvest’s aid. Staff from Feeding Georgia, Feeding the Carolinas—based in Clemmons, N.C., roughly 134 miles east of Asheville—and from several sister food banks, including Atlanta Community Food Bank and the Food Bank of Northeast Georgia in Athens came to Augusta to help start moving food.
With this support, Golden Harvest was able to get back to work as soon as Sunday, Sept. 29. One pressing issue that then soon presented itself was the matter of getting food to rural counties. Normally these avenues would be local partners such as churches, food pantries and community centers.
“They’re hurting just like we are,” said Folks. “So instead of doing that, we’re actually going to them and doing what we call direct distributions.”
Volunteers and staff have been taking teams by truck to these areas to hand out food, passing them out car by car, to anyone who comes. Some 60 members of Ossoff’s staff arrived Wednesday to assist in these efforts.
By about 10:30 a.m., a busload of volunteers from the senator’s office were at the Golden Harvest Distribution Center to help package fresh produce. They would then go on to Thomson, where they would operate one of these distributions, handing out apples and emergency relief boxes of fresh food.
Despite the storm, Golden Harvest still managed to directly distribute nearly half a million meals, and more than 1.1 million cups of water, across 17 Georgia counties since the hurricane, Folks says.
A skeleton crew worked the food bank the day after the storm, and most of the staff, many of whom still didn’t have power, couldn’t report until Monday, Sept. 30. Folks’ own home has suffered damage from a felled tree.
Amy Breitmann, president and CEO of Golden Harvest, called the staff “heroes” for still coming in to serve the community. Folks said he found the experience “humbling.”
“When a hurricane hits the coast, we are support staff… If it hits the Gulf Coast, we’re inland enough that we’re normally responding to others,” said Folks, lauding Golden Harvest’s partners for standing in the gap.
He recalled a woman receiving aid in Screvens County, Ga., recently, who said, “I have nothing, but I have everything,” in response to the impact of all of the support dispatched after the hurricane.
“The community came together in a way we’ve not seen or experienced before,” Folks said. “We love our network, we always have, but … we never even realized just how strong—and what that network meant—until we walked through this.”
The Golden Harvest Food Bank is located at 3310 Commerce Drive.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter covering business for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
