Food Committee

Occupy Atlanta isn’t fed by magic. I’m writing this as a reference for people who wonder where for the food comes from and how it’s distributed. Also for those who would like to help.

A local restaurant is willing to donate its leftovers to Occupy Atlanta. I don’t have the time to pick up food every night from them (around 9:30), and am looking for someone who I can pass off this responsibility to.

The vast majority of food donated to Occupy Atlanta comes from a specific, not-to-be-named-over-the-internet, church. At the beginning of Occupy they were donating food 4-5 days a week, but since December they’ve cut the donations down to 2-3 days. Food is normally picked up between 2:30 and 3:00 PM. I’d estimate they provide between 200 and 500 pounds of food at a time; it’s almost always enough to fill up a pick-up truck or my Impala, and anyone who has helped me unload food knows that my Impala can hold a lot.

From there, I drop off enough food at C-7 to fill their spare refrigerator and leave some food that doesn’t need refrigeration, e.g. bread. I’d guess that about 25% of the food goes to C-7, and I fill up their refrigerator once or twice a week. If there isn’t a lot of food donated I skip over C-7.

After C-7, I drive to Peachtree-Pine and drop off most of the rest of the food. Anything they don’t want goes to Glen Iris.

Sometimes there’s too much food for all three of those sites, in which case the remaining food is distributed to the homeless.

I pick up food from the church about 75% of the time, with occasional help from members of C-7 and other individuals. There has been exactly one day (1/6/12) where food was available wasn’t picked up; this happened because my phone had died and I didn’t realize until it was too late.

Occupy Atlanta also receives food every Friday or Saturday from The Purple House in Inman Park, which receives leftover food from the Dekalb Farmer’s Market. For about two months someone else picked up the food, but for the past month I’ve picked it up, between 12 and 2 PM. The food is always an assortment of vegetable—usually about 50 to 100 pounds. I drop it off at Peachtree-Pine.

On Tuesdays, another Church donates about 50 pounds of food, between 1 and 3 PM. I haven’t been in contact with them since the New Year, although that should change. This food also goes to Peachtree-Pine.

Other food donations trickle in from people associated with Occupy Atlanta, other churches, restaurants, and occupiers willing to spend their food stamps to feed everyone else. The four places listed above, however, provide the most consistent donations.

The logistics committee has a weekly gas budget of $40. Ostensibly, it goes to provide gas for picking up the food. As a lot of the vehicles used to transport food are also used to transport people and material, it’s difficult to say exactly how much Occupy Atlanta spends to transport food, except that it is less than $40 a week.

Finally, about $100 is spent every two weeks on disposable cutlery, dish soap, and other basic kitchen items. We buy our supplies from Samson Wholesale. It’s cheaper than a Dollar Store and anything I’ve been able to find online. Also, it’s only a few miles from C-7, as I (nor anyone else I know) is willing to drive half-an-hour or more to buy kitchen supplies every few weeks… especially on a limited gas budget.