They're sending out an SOS - Save Our Sandwiches.
MUST Ministries feeds nearly 300,000 hungry kids each summer when school's out. But their volunteer program is being dinged by the state Health Department, who says the organization can no longer accept donations of homemade sandwiches.
The health department says the way MUST volunteers make the sandwiches violates state regulations, but the organization told 11Alive's Kaitlyn Ross it's safe. The group says it has a two-page safety sheet that volunteer sandwich makers have to sign.
It outlines they have to wear gloves, make the sandwiches on wax paper, keep all of the ingredients separate and individually bag each sandwich. Volunteers even have to submit to a background check. But the Health Department says that's not good enough.
"We are not a restaurant trying to do this, we are your neighbors coming together, your friends," said MUST Ministries President Ike Reighard.
Those volunteers help feed children who are hungry. Reighard says he hears proof of that every day.
"She said, 'well honey, did you not get breakfast this morning?' she said, 'no. And I didn't get dinner last night,' and she said, 'why not?' She said, 'because it wasn't my turn to eat'," he said.
Their method to feed the kids is simple. Volunteers sign up to make the sandwiches at home, then bring them to distribution centers where they're given to the kids.
"The children will tear the sandwiches in half, and they will save the other half in the little plastic liner because that's what they're going to have for dinner that night," he said.
The Director of Environmental Health at the Department of Health says he understands MUST Ministries is doing a lot of good in the community.
"Our goal is to partner with the ministry," assured Dr. Chris Rustin. "We recognize that food insecurity is a public health concern in Georgia, but our primary mission is food safety."
"There are a number of summer feeding programs that have taken up these guidelines in the state," he added.
In other words, the law is the law.
The Health Department told MUST they could partner with certified church kitchens to make the sandwiches, but MUST says by the time they found all of the kitchens and volunteers, the summer would be over, and the kids would still be hungry.
"Some of them have been let down in so many ways, that the last way you want to let them down is going to bed hungry," Reighard said.
MUST says they're going to feed the kids no matter what, so now they're trying to raise money to purchase premade sandwiches. The cheapest vendor they could find is .74 cents a sandwich, so they need to raise $210,000 to feed the kids who depend on that sandwiches this summer.