With $13,000 of federal Coronavirus Relief Fund money, the city of Statesboro is working with Feed the Boro to supply some free groceries to area families in need through monthly Saturday morning drive-thru distributions in January, February and March.
The first of the three food drops will occur Jan. 30 beginning at 9 a.m. at Statesboro High School. The funding was originally part of $75,000 that City Council earmarked for a utility bill assistance program in October, but, with that program having used less than one-tenth of the money, the mayor and council in December shifted $13,000 to food relief.
As explained below, both the utility bill program and the city’s rent and mortgage assistance effort, which has used a much larger portion of the $100,000 allotted to it, remain open to new applications. A small-business assistance program, allotted $75,000 from the CRF money, is nearing its conclusion.
The three city-funded grocery distributions follow two that Feed the Boro provided with its own resources in November and December in place of the organization’s traditional Thanksgiving dinner distribution.
“People are displaced, out of work, lost their jobs, reduced hours and so forth and so on, and even in the best of times in this community we have a great food insecurity that we try to address through the food banks and through Feed the Boro on Thanksgiving for over a quarter of a century now,” said Feed the Boro Chairman Don Poe.
“There’s just a great need for it, and the need has not gone away, and it probably won’t go away for several months yet,” he added.
In 2020, coronavirus precautions also prohibited the Thanksgiving effort, which in recent years had involved more than 500 volunteers working in close proximity to cook more than 250 turkeys and all the trimmings, plate the meals and deliver them. Otherwise, last year would have been its 27th season.
The memorandum of understanding the city government approved Dec. 15 is actually with Poe, “doing business as” Feed the Boro. Under this agreement, the city will reimburse Second Harvest, the Savannah food bank that is part of a national 501c3 nonprofit network, directly for $5,000 worth of food for the January distribution and another $5,000 worth for the February drop.
The city will then contribute $3,000 toward a third $5,000 food drop in March, with Feed the Boro expected to pick up the remaining $2,000 cost from other donations.
“The $5,000 is what our actual cost is through Second Harvest,” Poe said. “It doesn’t take into effect any of the incidentals, such as things we have to purchase for the volunteers, which that’s very minor stuff, but it certainly takes care of the food expense for January and February, and then in March, Feed the Boro will step in with the other $2,000.”
His role under the city’s agreement is to coordinate and administer the food drops.
Donations sought
Feed the Boro is seeking donations toward the March distribution and to be able to help with emergency food supplies later this year, such as during hurricane season, he said. Feed the Boro remains so far without its own 501c3 status, but Crossroads Church serves as its financial host for donations. For information on how to donate, visit the website feedtheboro.
With the Jan. 30 and later distributions, drivers seeking food boxes will be expected to approach Statesboro High from Fleming Road behind the football stadium and drive as directed toward the front of the campus. Vehicles’ trunks must be open and empty, Poe said, because volunteers will not reach into cars or move anything in the trunk.
“We’ll put the food in the car and shut the trunk for them, and they’re on their way,” he said.
Each box will contain 25 pounds of staple food items in bags, cartons and cans. Fresh produce items, which vary with what Second Harvest has on hand, are provided in addition to the box, which is meant to be enough to feed a family of four two meals a day for one week.
The volunteers will not check any eligibility requirements to receive the food.
“We hope everybody’s honest and if they don’t need it don’t take it, and we can give it to somebody who does,” Poe said.
Other assistance
Last fall, Statesboro’s city government received $1.7 million in federal funding, administered by the state of Georgia, under the national CARES Act, for “Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security.”
The mayor and council in October set aside a total of $250,000 for the three local direct-relief programs. These included $100,000 for rent and mortgage help to Statesboro residents in danger of eviction or foreclosure and $75,000 each to a utility bill assistance fund and a program to help small businesses.
The city contracted with three different not-for-profit organizations – Action Pact, the United Way of Southeast Georgia and Georgia Southern University’s Business Innovation Group, or BIG – to administer these.
Utility bill help
City Council limited the utility bill grants to $175 per household, and this program has paid out less than 10% of the $75,000 originally allotted to it.
In a Jan. 14 memo, Diane C. Rogers, community services director for ActionPact, told City Manager Charles Penny that 49 households had received utility bill assistance totaling $6,168, rounded here to the dollar. These included 24 households getting help with Georgia Power bills, two households assisted with Excelsior Electric Membership Corporation bills and 23 households helped with the city’s own bills for water and sewer or natural gas service.
After the $13,000 was transferred to food assistance and with less than $7,000 having gone to utility customers as grants, about $55,000 remained in the utility bill assistance fund as of mid-January.
Help remains available for Statesboro residents having trouble paying utility bills. Action Pact’s call center is open 8 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Monday through Friday at (912) 489-1604, or see the city’s relief program webpage, www.statesboroga.gov/relief for information.
Mortgage and rent
For mortgage and rent assistance, the maximum grant is $3,000, intended to be enough to prevent a family from losing their home.
Of the $100,000 total allotted, $57,206 in mortgage and rental assistance has been awarded to 41 households, which include 100 individuals, according to an email Penny received Tuesday from the United Way of Southeast Georgia.
The United Way reported that 20 evictions had been prevented.
However, a far larger number of online applications had been received, 399, including those from applicants who did not turn in required documentation. The United Way had denied 28 applications.
Grants remain available. An online application for mortgage or rent assistance can be found at https://ift.tt/36pAMTW.
For small-business assistance, the maximum grant was $5,000. Georgia Southern’s BIG, handling the applications, has awarded grants totaling nearly $67,000, and the final $8,000 or more is likely to be awarded to about eight more businesses, Penny told City Council.
BIG reopened up its online application portal Dec. 28 but closed it again Jan. 8 and is still reviewing applications.
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City funding 3 Feed the Boro food drops; first one Jan. 30 at SHS - Statesboro Herald
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