Giving Tuesday is 'Super Bowl' for Atlanta Community Food Bank
EAST POINT, Ga. - The stats on the Atlanta Community Food Bank website are sobering: one in seven children in the ACFB service area goes to bed hungry every night, and more than 700,000 people in the service area are projected to be "food insecure." But volunteers and staffers say they hope to make a dent in those numbers on the busy day known as Giving Tuesday.
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Giving Tuesday was created back in 2012 as a way to encourage people to give back to their communities on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. That makes it a big day for the Atlanta Community Food Bank, which is currently dealing with increased demand due to both the holiday season and the ongoing pandemic.
Back in February, Atlanta Community Food Bank president and CEO Kyle Waide told Good Day Atlanta that the organization had seen a 65% increase in food distribution due to the pandemic.
"We’ve seen a dramatic increase in the number of people who are struggling to get all the food that they need," Waide said. "So many people have been impacted by job losses, by the closure of schools, by other disruptions in their lives."
Also helping in the effort to collect food for the Atlanta Community Food Bank is the Atlanta Apartment Association, which was founded back in 1975 as metro Atlanta's multifamily housing trade association. Over the years, representatives say they’ve been able to donate millions of meals thanks to their annual Food-A-Thon. This year’s event was held earlier this month and was organized as a drive-through event for participants dropping off food.
This morning, the Good Day Atlanta team got a look at how teams are filling orders for the holiday season at the food bank’s 345,000-square-foot new facility, located at 3400 North Desert Drive in East Point. Click the video player in this article for a look inside — and click here for more information on the Atlanta Community Food Bank.
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