We started in 1989 and we are still going strong. A group of people from St. George’s Episcopal Church in Griffin felt this ministry was sorely needed. Griffin/Spalding was once an important mill town, but, when the mills closed down in the 80’s and 90’s, our community suffered a high rate of unemployment. Five Loaves & Two Fish started with a few church members bringing cans of food to church. Our first location was a closet (pantry) at St. George's. Then it moved to a room downstairs at our church before moving once again across the street to the old Greyhound Bus Station. From there it moved to a small, donated house across from the church. Both the bus station and the house were part of St. George's property. Then, in 2012, we moved to our current location in a building across the street from our church.
Five Loaves & Two Fish distributes groceries every month to about 1,000 to 1,200 households. This equates to about 20,000 bags per year. We go through 350,000 to 500,000 pounds of food per year. We buy most of our food from the Atlanta Food Bank (our most important source) and from other local sources. We also have three (3) major Food Drives each year (Boy Scouts, Postal Carriers and Together We Can). There are many local businesses, farmers, churches, and residents that donate food to us all year long.
Grant dollars from businesses and churches like St George’s are where we get some of our operating dollars. We also get funding from the residents, churches, businesses, and civic organizations in our community. We have kept up to date with technology and have a complete database on our clients.
We are staffed by about 110 regular volunteers. In addition, we periodically have a special Saturday (Mobile Day) where we have additional volunteers. On this day, we get a truck from The Atlanta Food Bank typically with produce (6,000 to 10,000 lbs.). We distribute this to about 200-300 clients. This distribution does not count against their monthly allotted bag of groceries.
Around Thanksgiving we try to distribute a turkey or turkey voucher to a local grocery store. This is completely dependent on monetary donations from the community and supports hundreds of families in our community each year.
On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 8:00am - 12:00pm, we utilize volunteers to help intake food, weigh, sort, stack it on our shelves and build bags for distribution. Some volunteers work all four hours and some only work 1-2 hours. How long you volunteer is up to you.
During our hours of distribution, there are numerous volunteer opportunities such as: moving bags to the distribution table, adding perishable items to the bags, or entering data into our database. However, our greatest need for volunteers on distribution days is helping clients take their food to the vehicle. We call these volunteers "runners".
The Food Pantry is always in need of dry goods to stock our shelves. Cereal, Peanut Butter, Can Goods, Rice, Dried Beans, and healthy options are always welcomed. Donations can be dropped off at the Food Pantry during business hours.
If your church group, youth group, or community service organization would like to help, every third Saturday of each month the Atlanta Food Bank delivers a truck of goods that the Food Pantry distributes to our customers.
If you are a Kroger Card shopper, please consider signing up through their community rewards program. Your card will be linked to Five Loaves and Two Fish and Kroger will donate a percentage of your shopping to us. Our community number is 23573. Click the button below to be taken to the Kroger sign up page. This does not impact your fuel points!
As with any non-profit, financial donations are always welcomed and needed. The button below will redirect you to a PayPal page where you can give a monetary gift in any amount.
