Stabilizing Lives: Building a Food First Model

One in five Georgians faces hunger. In Metro Atlanta and North Georgia, almost 60 percent of food insecure households include someone working outside the home. The Atlanta Community Food Bank’s Stabilizing Lives Initiative is part of its strategic plan to meet food needs and stabilize families. To do this, we are conducting a two-year case study that will evaluate how effectively we can help working families move from crisis to stability. We understand that achieving stability is more than meeting physical, social and economic needs – it also entails living without fear of losing the ability to meet these needs.

We are basing our approach on the work of Abraham Maslow. He asserted that there is a hierarchy of needs in human development. People must have enough clean water, air, food, and adequate shelter before they can feel safe, invest in relationships and develop themselves. From the Hunger in America study, we know that the people food banks serve have to make trade-off choices in meeting these needs when they face limited resources (e.g. buying less food in order to pay rent). These trade-offs have serious consequences and can strain family budgets further. The stress of having to continually make these decisions can cause its own mental and physical health problems.

We are testing a Food First pantry model to find out how we can help the people we serve better meet their needs. In particular, we have two questions: does additional access to food lead to greater food security? Does this result in families making fewer trade-off decisions? The people we serve have shared with us how tightly they must manage resources. Despite their frugality, families are often one emergency away from crisis. We want to remove one financial burden by better meeting food needs. Hypothetically, if a family can save $300 a month on food, then those unspent funds can be a buffer against potential crises. Instead of being late on a bill and incurring fines, families can get the food they need and avoid setbacks that would make achieving aspirational goals, like education, more difficult.

Our model brings together all the services our food bank and partner agencies can provide. We also have an advisory board of committed organizations dedicated to intersecting missions (e.g. literacy and job placement) that will assist us. To help us design and evaluate our model, we have partnered with seven partner agencies, clients, the University of Georgia (UGA) and Georgia State University (GSU).

The Food First model will be rolling out in several phases over the course of the next year and a half. We will be implementing it at two pantries that have been paired with controls. Key components of the model include: expanding pantry hours, providing benefits screenings, offering nutrition education, comprehensive volunteer training, and growing pantry staff. Specifically, we will be studying families that have children under 18 and have at least one member working or seeking work. We are excited about what we will learn as we seek to better meet the needs of our community.

Sarah Otto-Wang is a Community Impact Coordinator with the Atlanta Community Food Bank. As a fellow of the YWCA’s Georgia Women’s Policy Institute, she is working to advance economic and health equity for women in Georgia. She is a former farmhand, fellow with the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership and with CARE USA, and an AmeriCorps VISTA. She earned an M.S. in Public Policy with a concentration in Urbanization and Food Security from Georgia State University and a B.A. in Religious Studies and Social Justice from Agnes Scott College.