On a September afternoon, with her grandchildren in the car, Laine Kirby Wood planned to glean the last of her Roma tomatoes in the community garden at the corner of West and East Marietta St. What she didn’t expect was a challenge.
As she dusted off her tomatoes, she heard a small voice call from behind her. She turned to see a little girl on a bicycle and her teenage sister holding out a plastic bag.
“We are hungry,” they said to her.
The girls received around 30 pounds of produce that day to sustain them for the rest of the month. They couldn’t go to MUST Ministries because their father had no papers, and Action Church only allowed families to take food once a month.
Back in her car, Wood was overcome with emotion. Her grandson asked what the girls wanted, and she told him they were hungry.
Her grandson paused for a moment and said, “Gran, what are you going to do?”
That was the catalyst she needed to start Canton Pantry Angels, a group of community-run food pantries in Canton, Ga. The yellow cabinets are fully stocked by community members who communicate through the Canton Pantry Angels Facebook group. When stocking a pantry, the group simply asks that donors post a before and after picture of what they contributed and to which location.
“I called Roy Taylor, he owns the garden, and he said ‘You know what, I’ve got an old kitchen cabinet. I’ll just paint it, weather it in, put a roof on it, and hang it on the pole down there. Will you take care of it?’ I said absolutely,” Wood said. “I posted about that on Facebook. My high school buddies and paddle buddies started sending me checks. I got almost $1,000 in donations and started buying food.”
When Wood’s page gained traction, her mutual friend on Facebook Jory Seidel Cannon stepped in to help manage the pantry.
“She was doing all this on her personal page, and you can’t do it all on a personal page,” Cannon said. “So, I said, how about if we just did a Facebook group instead?”
The group received some pushback from community members who were unaware of the issue of hunger in their backyards.
“It’s not obvious, you don’t see it on the street corners the way you do if you’re in Downtown Atlanta,” Cannon said. “It’s a little easier to turn a blind eye to, but that’s something these pantries made us learn. It’s everywhere and it’s not necessarily the people you would think. It’s not just one face.”
As of 2021, Cherokee County has a food insecurity rate of 7.7% according to data from Feeding America. While that number may seem small, it amounts to more than 20,000 food-insecure individuals.
The issue of hunger extends beyond discomfort. Barbara Leydecker, a registered dietitian, has seen how temporary and long-term food insecurity can have long-term consequences.
“Not only can hunger affect you cognitively, but it puts you at risk for all kinds of medical problems,” Leydecker said. “It can be as simple as vitamin and mineral deficiencies, but you can also see bone density loss and muscle loss. If it’s prolonged, now you’re talking about possibly leading to chronic illnesses.”
Chronic vitamin deficiencies and calorie restriction can lead to immune system insufficiency, chronic fatigue, and excess weight gain when food becomes available, Leydecker said.
The Facebook group has amassed more than 1,500 members. Cannon says only about 50 members actively stock the pantries. The operation has since grown to four pantries in the Canton area.
Cannon now works on the administrative side of the operation, moderating and mediating the Facebook group.
“There’s always conflict if people feel like someone is taking advantage of the situation and taking more than their share,” Cannon said.
She wants people to know that once food is in a pantry, it is no one’s place to decide who uses it and how.
“That person in the fancy car might be a divorced mom who hasn’t worked in 20 years and is trying to feed her kids,” Cannon said. “We don’t know the story, so we’re not allowed to fill in the blanks ourselves.”
The Pantry Angel’s reach continues to grow and has even surpassed Canton’s borders, with a pantry opening in Waleska not associated with the Facebook group.
With the holidays approaching, Cannon and Wood want the community to know the need for food doesn’t change as much as it increases when children are not receiving their usual school breakfasts and lunches.
Having kid-friendly food items, like juice boxes and cereal, available when children are out of school is a priceless commodity.
That’s not to say the treats that make the holidays special go unnoticed. For a food-insecure family, having foods on hand like cake mixes, canned hams, spices and candy goes a long way to making the holidays joyful.
Cannon and Wood want Canton’s residents to know that community-wide collaboration makes this operation possible.
“Everybody does what they’re good at,” Cannon said. “It takes Roy building the cabinets, it takes Laine’s connections in the community, it takes someone who is on Facebook far too often to run a page. It takes a community to feed a community.”
More information on Canton Pantry Angels, including pantry locations and donation guidelines, can be found on the Canton Pantry Angels Facebook page.
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