The start of summer vacation is typically the beginning of happy days for Georgia’s schoolchildren, but for thousands it is also the start of a time when food becomes scarce.
A recent national study found that 28.1 percent of Georgia's 2.5 million children face limited or uncertain access to adequate food, a situation that's worsened when schools, and free or reduced-cost breakfasts and lunches, are closed for summer.
Tuesday in Atlanta, the state’s legal community and the seven regional food banks that make up the Georgia Food Bank Association announced the results of their annual attempt to fill that void.
Attorney General Sam Olens visited the Atlanta Community Food Bank to announce that the third annual Legal Food Frenzy competition raised the equivalent of 1.14 million pounds of food, for a total of more than 2.5 million pounds in three years. The competition pits law firms against each other to collect food or donations to benefit the state’s food banks.
“The money and the food will go to work tomorrow, this afternoon,” said Bill Bolling, founder and executive director of the Atlanta Community Food Bank.
Bolling, also the chairman of the Georgia Food Bank Association, said 85 percent of children in Georgia who rely on school cafeterias for breakfast and lunch don’t have ready access to meal programs in the summer. Olens said 60 percent of Georgia’s public school students qualify for free or reduced-cost lunch at school.
“Children don’t care if they live in South Georgia or North Georgia if they’re hungry,” Bolling said. “They care about getting a meal if they’re hungry.”
The money and food raised during the Legal Food Frenzy will help plug the gaps for many Georgia families, Bolling said. The Atlanta Community Food Bank alone partners with more than 600 community-based organizations in 29 counties. Those groups, often churches or community organizations, pick up food and distribute it in their area.
The seven food banks, he said, serve families and children in every county in Georgia.
The Legal Food Frenzy began in Virginia and is now held in six states, Olens said. Law firms, judges and law schools are encouraged to participate. This year 270 offices from 40 cities competed to raise the equivalent of 2 million meals.
For the competition, a pound of food donated was equal to 1 pound, but every dollar donated equaled 4 pounds. The winner of the Attorney General’s Cup for 2014 was Joe S. Habachy of Atlanta, who owns his own firm. He raised the equivalent of 15,610 pounds of food.
Georgia State University’s College of Law won the law school division, while Greenberg Traurig of Atlanta won the large-firm category with more than 130,000 pounds collected.
“The whole idea is to get the legal community working with the regional food banks to assist the children in our state who are ‘food insecure,’ ” Olens said. “We have a state that can really use all the help we can provide it.”
Feeding America, a national network of 200 food banks, reported earlier this year that Georgia ranked fourth in the country for the number of children with inadequate access to food. Only Arizona, Mississippi and New Mexico rank worse. North Dakota has the lowest rate of childhood food insecurity at 10.6 percent.
For all residents, Georgia’s 18.9 percent rate of food insecurity is third-worst in the nation, behind only Mississippi and Arkansas.
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