Donation brings new life to Sewanee ministry
A donation from the local Rotary Club in Sewanee, Tennessee, is helping bring readymade meals to people in communities surrounding the Cumberland Plateau.
The Community Action Committee, the outreach ministry of Otey Memorial Parish Church in Sewanee, is using a donated CiMa-Pak tray sealer to freeze repurposed meals and distribute them to various groups.
The Rev. David Goodpaster, committee director and curate at the church, said the machine, which heats a plastic film to seal a tray of food, allows the ministry to continue serving the community while its other programs, including community meals and the in-person food bank, are shut down because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
“I’ve been giving meals out to everyone from someone who is 90 to an at- risk youth program in Winchester,” Goodpaster said.
The ministry repurposes unused food from Sewanee: the University Of The South. On Wednesday, volunteers with the program dished out stuffing, sweet potato casserole and corn casserole into plastic trays to be sealed and then frozen.
Rick Wright, director of dining at the university, said the Community Action
Committee is using food that was served to students within two days. Once the meal is frozen it can be good for up to 6 months. In less than an hour of work, the group of volunteers can package around 150 meals.
“The idea is to reduce the amount of food that goes to the landfill and feed people. It’s a winwin,” Wright said.
As the virus shut down businesses and cost people their jobs in the spring, the resulting economic burden made many Americans food insecure. In June, a study showed that one in five people and more than one in four children in the Chattanooga region and Northwest Georgia could face hunger as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic’s economic effects.
In Chattanooga, programs such as We Over Me have launched food drives to bring produce and other goods directly to communities in need. The Chattanooga Area Food Bank has partnered with the Hamilton County Health Department to give out boxes of food at the
county’s COVID-19 testing site. The boxes can be used by people who may have the virus and need to quarantine for two weeks.
In Sewanee, Goodpaster delivers meals to a variety of programs throughout the region. The group now packages meals one night a week for an hour, but Goodpaster and Wright said they are hoping to expand.
Wright said they could package meals several times a week and partner
with restaurants or other food service organizations, which often have unused food and no outlet beyond throwing it away.
“Everyone in the industry has unused portions,” Wright said.
The coronavirus shuttered the committee’s food bank, forcing the ministry to hand out bags of food rather than allowing community members to come to the physical space, pick out what they want and spend time talking with
other people.
The donation, paired with the ease of using the tray sealer, has given new life to the committee’s ministry during the pandemic, Goodpaster said.
“Th i s is just a game- changer to be able to distribute ready- made meals at quantity and quality,” he said.