FORSYTH COUNTY, Ga. — Mariah Bales is a single mom of four children. One was recently accepted to UGA, another attends Georgia State and her two youngest, are in elementary school. She works between two and three jobs to keep a roof over their heads.
Now, with schools closing due to the coronavirus, all four children are at home full-time, indefinitely.
Bales, who worked at a temp agency in Alpharetta and a gym in Sandy Springs, saw both her companies cut back, leaving her jobless.
“I’m literally choosing rent or medication or gas,” she said.
Her youngest daughter only has one kidney, while Bales and her older son both have asthma.
“We were supposed to get healthcare on April 1st and now I don’t know what’s going to happen,” she explained. “My older son and myself have been without medication since the benefits ended in December.”
Bales, twice divorced, has worked for years trying to reclaim her life. In less than a week, all the hard work suddenly put her back in a tight spot.
“Applying for jobs, doing online school, talking to the teenagers about what they’re going to do. Trying to figure out the bills, how the rent is going to get paid, how the utilities are going to get paid. It’s a lot in just five days," she said.
She and over 300 other families in Forsyth and Dawson Counties turn to Meals By Grace to get help with food every week. The non-profit, headed by Suellen Daniels, focuses on delivering food to homes with children. They also operate a mobile pantry and do deliveries for populations in need, like the elderly.
Meals By Grace normally delivers meals every week every Sunday per family, but now, they have to make up for schools being out.
In addition, the non-profit gives families with children additional “break bags” filled with food when children are out on spring or summer breaks.
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They cost $10 a bag; a cost that is rising for the charity.
“$1,200 every week, so every week the children are out, it just adds multiples to that,” said Daniels.
In addition to rising costs of operations, they are figuring out how to keep working, with restrictions of gathering in more than groups of ten.
“We’re taking a lot of our programs and breaking them up into small pieces and using ten volunteers for each part of the program and stationing them in a different part of the building,” Daniels explained.
They’re also serving their senior population by delivering food to their cars, to keep contact at a minimum. For home deliveries, volunteers are leaving food on the doorstep, again to minimize contact.
Meals By Grace isn’t the only charity facing challenges. The Red Cross is facing a blood shortage. The Atlanta Community Food Bank said in a statement “our priority remains focused on providing food and resources to those in need — a demand we anticipate will increase significantly over the coming weeks.”
“A lot of our children are actually home alone because their parents are desperately trying to keep their jobs," Daniels said. "They’re trying to work as much as possible, so they need heroes. They need to see those people come out and bring those meals."
Despite figuring out how to make their budget stretch, while addressing volunteer restrictions and shortages, Daniels is determined to not interrupt food services.
“We’re going to give away food until we can’t access food anymore. Until the last person is standing, we’re going to keep feeding those kids," she said.
For people who need charities, like Bales, the news that they’ll continue to get food has taken at least one stressful thing off her plate.
“Every time they come, every Sunday, we’re grateful,” she said. “In this situation, if I didn’t have them bringing the extra food, we would be out by Sunday.”
But she is concerned about other future finances, including bills and finding another job.
“It just doesn’t seem real and I’ve worked so hard to get out of this,” Bales said. “There’s so many people that aren’t saving, that don’t have a job, that don’t know what they’re gonna do.”
To learn more about Meals By Grace, or to volunteer, visit their website.
In addition, here are other ways to help:
Hands on Atlanta highlights how the community can help fight food insecurity, which we’ve identified as one of, if not the most urgent needs facing those we serve.
They also have a nice “digital volunteering” catalogue of projects and resources for folks who want to help from home.
The American Red Cross has a severe blood shortage, due to an unprecedented number of blood drive cancellations as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. Healthy individuals are needed to donate now to help patients counting on lifesaving blood.
Volunteer donors are in a unique position to ensure essential medical care continues for those who depend on lifesaving transfusions, such as surgical patients, accident victims, new moms with complicated childbirths, patients going through cancer treatment and more.
The Georgia Center for Nonprofits is putting together a giving effort to help support areas throughout the state of Georgia as many of those places have no hospitals and have very limited medical services.
The legal community nationwide, statewide and locally are collaborating to create legal FAQs on a large number of topics as a way to respond to numerous legal issues that are emerging because of COVID-19.
These will be available from the American Bar Association with information on Federal law and from the Georgia Legal Services Program for state law-related items.
Georgia’s Free Legal Answers is a virtual opportunity for lawyers to provide legal support to rural communities and many states have a similar virtual resource.
The Georgia Senior Legal Hotline number (888) 257-9519 will continue to operate. Calls are monitored Monday through Friday.
The United Way. Individuals and families impacted and in need of support can contact United Way of Greater Atlanta’s 2-1-1 Contact Center. There are many ways to connect to 2-1-1 including by phone, chat, email or mobile app. 2-1-1 is a valuable resource that is available 24-hours and 7 days-a-week.
The mission of Meals on Wheels Atlanta is to support senior independence through meals, shelter, education, and community. Their flagship program, Meal Services, provides nourishing meals to low-income and homebound seniors in Atlanta who are unable to afford or access adequate nutrition. Volunteers are needed to deliver meals to frail, homebound and low-income seniors residing in Fulton County.
Cobb County Student Food Distribution This week MUST Ministries and South Cobb Council PTA will distribute food boxes for Cobb students in need at all MUST distribution sites and at 30+ Cobb school locations. Sign up to volunteer by emailing: neighborhoodpantry@mustministries.org
The Atlanta Community Food Bank continues to monitor the development of COVID-19 and has been taking proactive steps to protect the neighbors they serve, their Food Bank team, and their supporters. As the situation continues to rapidly evolve, the Food Bank's priority remains focused on providing food and resources to those in need — a demand which is anticipated to only increase significantly over the coming weeks.
These include vulnerable, high-risk Georgians, such as seniors with chronic medical conditions and families with school-aged children who will lose up to two free school meals a day now that public schools will be closed for at least the next several weeks. Under this added strain, thousands of hardworking families will turn to the Food Bank.
Currently, Open Hand Atlanta has over 450 volunteer openings available that have been posted. They would sincerely appreciate support from anyone who is healthy and willing to help.
11Alive is focusing our news coverage on the facts and not the fear around the virus. We want to keep you informed about the latest developments while ensuring that we deliver confirmed, factual information.
We will track the most important coronavirus elements relating to Georgia on this page. Refresh often for new information.
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