MerServe's Hunger and Homelessness Committee hosted its first “Giving Thanks and Giving Back” from Nov. 21-23, a Thanksgiving-themed event with six separate community service opportunities.
The average number of food insecure individuals in Bibb County is higher than both the state and local average, according to reporting from the Macon Newsroom, adding that 1 in 6 adults and a quarter of children experience food insecurity in Middle Georgia. According to United Way of Central Georgia, 22 percent of Macon residents battle food insecurity. Students in the Bibb County School District receive free or reduced lunches during the day given the high poverty rates in the county. However, those meals are not accessible during this week's Thanksgiving break, nor during December's holiday break.
Elaine Do ‘28, who serves on the board of MerServe, said the widespread food insecurity inspires her to get involved in the community, particularly for students.
“By giving them food, we might improve their lifestyle,” Do said. “Even if it is one job they don’t have to work, it’s one less day their parents have to worry.”
Giving Thanks started with Backpack Buddies, a program that provides food for children in need, which committee coordinator Aiyaz Ali ‘28 said is a familiar and popular service for MerServe. On Saturday, Nov. 22, students volunteered with Rescue Mission of Middle Georgia, a non-profit focused on rehabilitation for recovering addicts and unhoused people. MerServe also pitched in for Weekend Lunch at Christ Chapel and the Napier Heights Food Co-op.
The first three events for Giving Thanks targeted food-related issues leading into Thanksgiving week. Napier Heights offers vendors a space to sell fresh produce. Ali said hundreds of people line up for the Weekend Lunch, which is hosted every Saturday.
There were also two shifts on Sunday for the Skydog Music Festival, a charity concert in Carolyn Crayton Park. Guests donated necessities for Daybreak Macon, a community center for unhoused people that is located less than a half mile from the entrance to the park.
Ali said this was the first time the committee had hosted a multi-day event.
“We don’t do a lot of events based around the holiday season,” Ali said. “It’s a little bit different from what we’re used to.”
Ali, his fellow coordinator Kassia Bono ‘28 and 13 others students spent Friday evening at Forest Hills Global Methodist Church, the headquarters for Backpack Buddies Ministry. Forest Hills volunteer Barbara Wolfe said the church delivers meals to more than 3,000 students across 30 schools each week.
Wolfe gave The Cluster a walkthrough of the storage shed on church grounds, which runs with at least one volunteer group, like MerServe, per day. Inside were dozens of black carts, each filled with 50-60 grocery bagged lunches that may help feed students and the unhoused for some time.
Wolfe said the community food bank that Backpack Buddies uses was unable to provide food this week, but the church found workarounds, including donations from its congregation and a recent grant from Macon-Bibb County.
“It’s a lot less cost effective, but when there’s nothing at the food bank to bring to us, we have to get it somehow because the children still need the food,” Wolfe said.
Nathaniel Jordan '29 intends to major in Journalism at Mercer and hopes to work as an investigative journalist. His hobbies include poetry, photography and home cooking, and you can probably find him around Macon shopping or walking through local parks with his wife and son.
