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Saturday, Aug. 02, 2008

Non-profit provides groceries at discounted prices

Earlier this year, Glenda Miller of Lexington was barely making ends meet, feeding herself and the two adults who lived in her home.

Then her son and his two children moved in. Soon after, a friend who lost her home and her two children joined Miller's household. Before the end of each month, all the food would be gone.

Then Miller learned about Angel Food Ministries, a non-profit, non-denominational organization that provides groceries at discounted prices to people in Lexington, Central Kentucky and 34 other states.

”Now I tell everybody — everybody — about it,“ said Miller, 57. ”I couldn't afford to feed my family without it.“

Miller is one of 600 customers who purchase food each month through the Angel Food program administered by Rosemont Baptist Church.

The households pay $30 for a box of food that includes frozen beef, chicken, pork, and vegetables, plus pasta, rice and beans and dessert items. The average retail value of the items is $60, but because Angel Food buys in bulk to serve 500,000 families a month, its orders are heavily discounted, and the savings are passed along to the recipients.

”The food is restaurant quality,“ said Richard Proctor, who administers the program operated by Rosemont Baptist. ”There are no seconds or dented cans.“

There also are no income restrictions or other criteria that customers have to meet, Proctor said. ”We have people who ride the bus to come in, and we have people of more affluent means.“

How the program works

Angel Food Ministries was launched in 1994 by the Revs. Joe and Linda Wingo in Monroe, Ga. Factories in their city were closing, and residents were going hungry.

The Wingos began by handing out groceries to 34 families from the back porch of their home. Then the idea struck: Why not expand the program, cut out the middleman and provide the food directly to people by using volunteers from churches and community agencies?

Today, Angel Food packs 600 trucks a month with food from its 160,000-square-foot distribution center in Monroe, and enlists the help of 45,000 volunteers to hand it out at 4,500 host sites, where the trucks are unloaded and food is separated into boxes and bags.

The truck that supplies Rosemont Baptist carries orders for 600 customers. Two Nicholasville churches, Open Door Free Methodist and Bethel Harvest, take 250 of those orders to distribute to smaller churches in their area and their own members. The remaining 350 orders go to families from Rosemont and the five churches who order through it: First Assembly of God, Journey Baptist, Hill 'N Dale Christian and Stonewall Presbyterian, all of Lexington, and Shawhan Baptist in Paris.

Proctor, an operations manager at Intertek Testing Services, a telecom testing lab, is talking with churches in Paris and Cynthiana, hoping they will become host sites.

”We usually get about 60 people to help out (at Rosemont Baptist),“ he said. ”We're a small church, but we're big in spirit and heart.“

To order food, recipients register online or by phone during the first two weeks of each month. The food arrives on the last Saturday of the month.

There is no limit on the number of boxes a person can order. Each box is designed to feed a family for one week or an individual for a month.

Customers can also order special boxes of meats or fruits and vegetables, which cost $18 to $20 and are available with the purchase of a regular box. Angel Food Ministries also accepts food stamps.

Blessings by the box

The program was originally designed to assist people undergoing difficult transitions: divorce, job loss, health problems, seniors with fixed incomes.

But it has expanded to help ”people stretch their food budgets,“ Proctor said. ”It is also to help people with means to use the money they save to donate to help someone else.“

Evelyn Cerelli, a Lexington resident who works as an underwriter, said, ”There are two families I buy food for, although not on a regular basis.“

Cerelli, 48, also purchases food through the program for herself and — when he is at home on weekends — her son, who is in the military.

”I use it for myself, my sister, my mother. My grandmother uses it because it supplements everything you need,“ she said.

”Also, I eat things I wouldn't normally eat,“ she said. ”Everything's been real­ly good quality. It saves on gas, and it saves on time.“

Recently, Cerelli purchased a supplemental box of fresh fruits and vegetables for $16. ”One item alone in the box was $7 in a supermarket. I probably saved $20 or more.“