EAST COBB, Ga. — Many parts of Cobb County are nearly unrecognizable these days, with schools and businesses closed across the area. But the residents are staying strong, even coming together to help each other, and they’re doing it on a weekly basis.
“We are basically a ragtag bunch of volunteers from all walks of life within this community just doing our best to help each other through this,” Sharona Sandberg said.
She’s the president of the newly formed Sprayberry Community Group, which is hosting a weekly food drive at Piedmont Church in Marietta. Sandberg said the idea came about last month when area schools started closing.
“We were originally worried about kids who were doing free and reduced meals,” she said. “We were wondering how they were going to get fed for the two or three weeks that schools are going to be closed.”
There were already other organizations like MUST Ministries helping as much as possible, but Sandberg said she and her friends wanted to do their part too.
“We kind of jumped on the bandwagon and started setting this up on our own,” she said. “Because MUST Ministries was being so overwhelmed with people asking for help, we just kind of picked up the ball and ran with our own thing.”
Piedmont Church quickly got on board as a donation and pickup site, Sandberg said. For the past few weeks, it’s been one of the go-to places for food.
“Last week on our pick up day, it was nonstop. We estimated we reached about 200 families. It's been an ever-increasing number, and I imagine it's going to continue to be that way,” Melissa McKeehan, Vice President of the Sprayberry Community Group, said. “We never know how many donations we’re going to receive each week, and obviously we're only able to reach families based on how much we receive. What we do need to see is those donations continue to come in.”
Donations are accepted at the church every Tuesday between 3 and 7 p.m. McKeehan said a drive-thru system is in place, allowing donors to stay in their vehicle the whole time.
“They just tell us what part of the car the groceries are located in,” she said.
McKeehan said a similar system is in place every Wednesday from 4 to 6 p.m. when people come to pick up the food they need, and all volunteers wear gloves and masks.
“We don't turn anybody away. If you need food, come and get food,” Sandberg said. “We’re supposed to have 10 people or less, so we keep ours to seven or less. We use the same volunteers over and over again. We don't allow new people to come in, just again trying to cut that down because we know it is a real fear. We don't handle any actual food items here. Everything is prepackaged. We're doing the absolute best we can to cut down on spreading this unnecessarily, and just making sure people know they can feel comfortable, that we are being very diligent about this.”
“It's been wonderful to have this additional resource to send families to,” Maggy Hoskins, a Cobb County Schools social worker, said. “It has been amazing just to see the community that has supported and come forth in bringing donations. It has been so very helpful for this community at large. The volunteers that have come together during this time where it's scary even to be out there, they are so dedicated to making sure these students and families have food to eat in their homes. I'm just amazed by it."
Since the food drives started in mid-March, Sandberg said other churches and food stores have gotten involved, including Sandy Plains Baptist Church, Holy Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, plus local Kroger and Publix locations.
“We're going to get through this together,” she said. “We may not physically be together, but we pull together and that's how we're going to get through this.”
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