Helping Hands continues to serve 18 years on
♦ Group needs greatest help during holiday season fundraising campaign
The idea of Helping Hands Food Pantry goes back to a story in the Bible about the miracle of the fish and loaves to feed those who gathered to hear Jesus.
Being able to provide food security is a mission based on faith for one local group who are inspired by the charity found in the gospels to serve their fellow people with whatever food they can find.
At Helping Hands Food Pantry in Rockmart, the rows of cans and boxes and bags of nonperishable goods line shelves within the small space the food pantry takes up at the shopping center next to Dollar General. Its bound for bags on Distribution day to help feed those in dire need in the community, and a task that isn’t easy. It takes time to fill all those bags needed, time to go find the food donations, and much more time to raise money for items that can’t be found otherwise, but are still part of a healthy diet that the founders of the organization continue to provide, year after year.
Helping Hands has been on this mission for nearly two decades offering food to clients they can take home who otherwise wouldn’t be able to help themselves. It’s an effort made possible through the volunteer efforts of founders Clint and Betty Cornwell, who continue to work tirelessly to be both ambassadors and servants for a sometimes forgotten group locally.
They’ve heard all kinds of stories over the years, of heartache and tragedy; of families being forced to make hard decisions, live in cars and camp in the woods to survive because they can’t make ends meet. It’s a problem they continue to see each and every day the pantry is open to the public.
“It’s especially hard in the winter time with the snow coming, or the rain coming,” Clint Cornwell said in late October. “We got word the other day of at least 30 people over in Cartersville living in the woods. There’s probably that many people in Rockmart living in the woods, camping in their tents.”
Success stories are just as common as well, the couple said. They’ve met many people who have fallen on hard times and utilized the pantry’s help, but managed to get themselves back into the work force, and then onward into a home and stable lifestyle.
“They begin to get their feet back under them, and they come back and tell us they no longer needed our help because they finally got themselves stabilized,” he said.
It’s these stories that motivate them to continue onward in their pursuit to help.
“That’s why we do it,” Betty Cornwell said. “There’s not enough jobs for untrained people.”
Clint added “the workforce has changed, and people have dropped out of the workforce back in the Obama days, and they just dropped out of sight as far as society goes. That happens from many different sources.”
Health problems, family crises, and so many people live paycheck to paycheck instead of saving for hard time.
Which is why they chose the food pantry nearly two decades ago as a way to provide help to the Rockmart community, and serve a population of people to this day that still struggle to make ends meet.
Helping Hands started small, with barely any room at all to provide much in the way of services to the community.
“We started with a very small pantry room about half the size of this one (a conference room at the pantry),” Clint Cornwell said. “That one room was our distribution room, our office and our supply closet.”
It’s grown much larger since. Now they’re located out of their distribution center at 221 S. Piedmont Ave., Rockmart alongside Dollar General, and also utilize the profits generated from the Helping Hands Thrift Store on Church Street to supplement donations from the community.
It’s easier said than done. The Cornwell’s, along with the help of their completely volunteer staff, also have to coordinate deliveries from area grocery stores like Publix to make donations of perishable food items to go along with canned and frozen items to make up a 12 to 20 pounds per person they give out.
It does a lot of good for many who otherwise might go hungry.
The Cornwell’s said all the people who still need help out in the community in their faith-driven organization keeps them working at the problem of feeding still hungry Polk County residents year after year.
“Even though the economy seems to be growing, when we go back two, three or four years ago, we were having people come in who lost their businesses,” Clint Cornwell said. “Their trucking companies had shut down. People who had just lost everything. The food supply was one of the things that was some help that they could get.”
With all the people they help per year, it totals out to 275,000 pounds of food given out annually on average, all on a operating budget annually of an average of $58,000.
They’re hoping for a lot of help from the community, especially during the holiday season when the needs are greatest for food of all kind.
Helping Hands is hoping to meet a target of $14,500, and have thus far received around $2,000 of what they need for the year. They are calling on businesses, church groups, civic clubs, and others to partner with them for either monthly or annual donations to help those in the greatest of need.
Some blessings have come their way in the past years. A 24-foot refrigerated truck was donated to replace a 1996 model Ford U-Haul that was being used previously by an organization that learned of the mission of Helping Hands and wished to provide them with the vehicle.
Otherwise, all the funds that are donated -- and tax deductible since Helping Hands is a non-profit -- goes mainly back to giving to those in need.
It’s an effort that requires everyone to pitch in at the shelter, all through a volunteer effort. They have no payroll to speak of at all. The thousands of dollars a year it takes to run the pantry goes into funding the cost of purchasing food not already donated, to paying rent and utilities, and helping those in the most dire need.
The work volunteer staff put in amounts to 165 hours a week giving back in a variety of ways, from creating the bags of food to help, providing assistance at the Thrift Store, and much more.
Those who are willing to give back to Helping Hands during the lead-up to the holiday season can contact them at 678-685-4644, or stop by the pantry on South Marble Street during distribution days to drop off donations and learn more about ways to serve.
Anyone who needs help with food security can come on Tuesdays or Thursdays from 12 to 4 p.m. Clients who are provided a bag of food can only come once every 30 days, but there are minimal paperwork and eligibility requirements otherwise.