Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

This past Wednesday, a food drive was held at Nelson Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, in association with the Hero Foundation and Kids ‘n Cops. The food was provided by Second Harvest of South Georgia, while Kids ‘n Cops helped connect the drive with children in need.

According to Jerome Tucker, one of Second Harvest’s board members, their organization has food warehouses in Thomasville, Tifton and Valdosta, and they organize food deliveries in their community three Saturdays per month. “We serve 1,500 to 2,000 families, but even at that, there’s still neighborhoods and people that we don’t reach, so we reached out to some of the churches in the surrounding communities to help with deliveries,” Tucker said. “We’ve engaged churches from Bainbridge to Waycross to help us with this, and it’s been outstanding.”

“We’d like to certainly thank them (Second Harvest) for their efforts in working with us,” Nelson Pastor Reynolds said. “They’ve been gracious with bringing the food and putting it off each time we ask. We’ve given out about 100 boxes to 100 families each time they’ve been there.” Pastor Reynolds expressed a desire to work with Second Harvest into the future. “We want to continue this, especially throughout this pandemic, and even beyond. If people have a need in the community for food, and especially children this summer who are out of school. The schools normally provide food for them, so this will probably be a source of food for them throughout the summer.” Church member Liz Tomlin thanked those who aided the drive, “We would like to thank the community for participating, and all the volunteers.”