About 10,000 homeless and hungry found food. Hundreds -- needing clothes, medical attention and things as simple as a shampoo and a haircut -- found that, and more, Easter Sunday at the Georgia Dome.
It was the 10th annual staging of the Hosea Feed the Hungry Easter Fest, carried out by hundreds of volunteers and led by Elisabeth Omilami, daughter of the late civil rights leader Hosea Williams, who four decades ago started a tradition of feeding the homeless on Thanksgiving Day.
“If we had been able to get the word out better, maybe we would have had more people here, but this was a tremendous success,” said Omilami, who thanked the Coca-Cola Co. for helping underwrite the expense of staging the event at the Dome. The group was charged a discounted $20,000 to lease space.
Previous Easter Fests were staged at City Hall East in space donated by the city when it owned the building. About 3,300 volunteers worked in shifts starting Saturday night to prepare and distribute meals of macaroni, chicken salad, chips, a desert and cold drink, plus about 500 Easter baskets for children.
The meals were prepared by volunteers in the kitchen of the DeKalb County jail, which the county donated to the cause. The meals were delivered off site, and to homeless shelters Sunday evening, in trucks donated by Atlanta Peach Movers. Local farmers markets donated bags of fruit and vegetables distributed to the needy.
Omilami estimated about 1,500 people lined up for shampoos and haircuts, and an additional 1,200 received medical attention during the event that lasted from about 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
This year was a particular challenge, she said.
“It’s getting more difficult to get contributions because times are tough," Omilami said, "but people need this even more because times are tough."
Jammie Jones, a 36-year-old homeless Atlantan, said the holiday would have been more difficult to celebrate for him and his wife and their 9-month-old daughter, Kseniya, if it weren't for the donated food and Easter basket.
“I’m very thankful for this,” he said. “There are a lot of people here who are hungry.”
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