Smorgasbord Fall 2015

7/23/2019 Smorgasbord Fall 2015

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AIB Inspected: Reaching the Gold Standard

We Did It!

Thanks, 18,000Times!

Feeding the

Valley in ...

Its Time to

GROW!

Rock StarReaders at

Kids Caf

Help Feed the

Need!

Hunger Action

Month

Thank YouRobinson

Grimes & Co.

HungerDoesnt take

the Weekend

Off

We Did It!Feeding The Valley just became AIB certified! This is the gold

standard certification in food safely and our warehouse team

passed a rigid audit and inspection with a glowing score of 955

out of a possible 1000. This certification is comparable to an IOS

certification in the manufacturing environment and is mandated

by Feeding America. We are the third Georgia food bank to pass

and be certified. This will go a long way in terms of our credibility

with our major food donors and will help increase food donationsfrom our retail partners such as Walmart, Sams Club, Publix,

Winn-Dixie, Target, Kroger, Smuckers, Kraft Foods and the many

others. Hats off to the FTV team, this is a big milestone!

What is AIB?American Institute of Baking International focuses on

empowering organizations

and people worldwide to

elevate food safety stand-

ards. Scoring well on our AIBInspection shows that we are

committed to doing all we

can to provide clean, safe

products.

Feeding The Valley Food Bank Newsletter

Fall 2 15

A sprinkle of news, a dash of information and smore from Feeding The Valley Food Bank

In This Issue

[Our logo is] fresh, crisp, and

boldly conveys that gathering

food to feed those in need is

our passion and in our hearts.

Check us out!

Columbus:

facebook.com/Feeding-the-valley-206451742698993

LaGrange:

facebook.com/feedingthevalley

Twitter:

Twitter.com/feedingthevally


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Feeding the Valley in ...

Did you know that we opened a warehouse in LaGrange in 2014? With this satellite

warehouse, we have a laser-beam focus on serving Troup, Harris, Meriwether and

Talbot counties in a more efficient manner.

The LaGrange TeamDenn Muncy is our warehouse coordinator and Daniel Saunders is our warehouse

assistant /driver. They are a team of two and in its first year of operation, more than 1

million pounds of food has been distributed from this warehouse. AIB impacts the La-

Grange warehouse also. In early October, they went through the AIB training audit.

The final audit is scheduled to occur in January 2016.

Reaching New HeightsDenn is establishing new relationships in all of these communities and reaching out

to churches and non-profits and introducing them to Feeding the Valley. If you know of

a church or non-profit in these counties that has a food program or would like to start a

food program, please reach out to them and let them know about Feeding the Valley

and our convenient location in LaGrange.

Phone: 706-298-7388 Address: 118 Gordon Commercial Drive, LaGrange, GA

Thanks,18,000 Times!We cannot say thanks enough to the

teams of volunteers who come through

our warehouse on a weekly basis. With

a small staff, and a tight budget, wecould not pack and deliver 7,000 mo-

bile pantry boxes monthly without

them. Last year we logged more than

18,000 volunteer hours, so volunteers

are the life blood of our mission and we

are grateful for their service. In the last

few months we have enjoyed having

volunteers from TSYS, Synovus, Fort

Benning, House of T.I.M.E., Easter

Seals and church youth groups. You

are all a part of the Feeding the Valley

team!

18,000 Thanks to Our Volunteers!

Denn Muncy and Daniel Saunders at Feeding the Valley LaGrange

Feeding the Valley

LaGrange Warehouse

Serving:

Troup

Harris

Talbot andMeriwether counties


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Its Time to GROW!

In the last six years, our food distribution has increased by 400%. We have been in our current location since June

1992, and we are land locked there is nowhere else to grow! We need to expand in order to be more efficient and

offer more cold and frozen storage. Plans are underway to raise local funds in order to be considered for two major

grants being offered to Georgia food banks.

Our new facility will model a state-of-the-art facility built in Thomasville, GA that has won approval by the Georgia Food Bank Associ-

ation. Our new location wont be far from our present location! It will be located on 5.5 acres near Highway 80 and Manchester Ex-pressway, which is convenient highway access for our trucks. Plans are for it to be a 31,000 square foot facility with a five level rack-

ing system that will increase our food storage capacity from 750,000 lbs. to 1.5 million lbs. of food and will include refrigeration space

that quadruples storage capacity for meats and produce. And it will offer plenty of park-

ing! Keep us in your prayers that we will receive the necessary funding for this new facility!

Ms. Lyn Seaman and the Rock Star Readers Program

Rock Star ReadersThings have been rockin at Kids Caf since summer. This sum-

mer, we increased our KC sites to 17 and averaged 1,500 meals

per day. Now that school is in session, we have 13 sites and av-

erage 6,225 meals a week. During the summer months, the

Chattahoochee Valley Library began an outreach program at

some of our KC sites. Ms. Lyn Seaman,

a retired library employee, has started

the Rock Star Readers Program and

brings books to life and sparks the imag-

ination of kids with arts and crafts. What

a great partnership and we hope it will

expand even more to enhance the time

we have these children under our wings!

It doestake a village!


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Help Feed

the Need!

Tis the season for food

drives. Food drives are

essential to help us keep

our shelves full. We re-

ceive food drive dona-tions from generous

retailers, companies,

schools, church groups,

civic organizations and

many others.

Most NeededOur most needed foods

are those that are high in

protein such as peanut

butter, jelly, tuna,

canned meats, soups,

fruits, vegetables, maca-

roni and cheese, rice,

pasta, beans, cereal,

oatmeal and crackers.

Plan a FoodDrive ...Let us know if you or

your organization wants

to plan a food drive. We

can supply the contain-

ers and coordinate pick

up.

Contact: swatson@

feedingthevalley.org

September was

Hunger Action

MonthOrange is the symbolic color to repre-

sent Hunger and we enjoyed seeingmany orange spoon photos on our Fa-cebook page. One in five adults and onein four children are considered food in-secure in Georgia and this is a higherstatistic than the national average. Any-thing we can do even sticking an or-ange spoon on our nose, to raise hun-ger awareness in important! Imagine aworld without hunger!

Feeding the Valley is Gathering & Distributing Food to Feed the Hungry

Hunger Doesnt Take the Weekend Off

As students across Georgia prepare for the upcoming holidays, we are reminded of the many struggling families living in our community. Parents with lowincomes have the added stress of finding ways to af-ford healthy snacks and meals for their children. Anew backpack, lunch box may not seem like much, butif your budget is already stretched to its limit, everyextra expense means cutting back in other areas including food.

Fortunately, our schools provide nutritious breakfastsand lunches through free and reduced priced mealprograms. This resource ensures that students have

the fuel to focus on their studies from the first bellthrough the last class of the day. But what happensafter the school day ends? Thats where friends likeyou come in.

Churches, community organizations and clubs cansponsor our Buddy Pack program. Kid friendly snacksare delivered to the schools and packed in backpackson Fridays for students identified by school administra-tion to ensure privacy. Happy kids leave school on Fri-day with food for the weekend.

If you are interested in supporting this program, contactus. [email protected]

Thank You toRobinson Grimesand CompanyColumbus largest accounting firm, RobinsonGrimes and Company participated in the Geor-gia Accountants Food Fight and raised $1025and donated 125 pounds of peanut butter andjelly.

Perfect Items

PB&J were the perfect food items for the startof the school yearbecause we dontalways get thesefood products fromour national retail-ers. Peanut butterhas high nutritionalvalue as well as

being a goodsource of protein.We are alwayshappy to have pea-nut butter on ourshelves for ourpartner agencies.

Smorgasbord Fall 2015

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