Contributions to Feeding the Valley 'magnified' during holiday season

Carlton Fletcher, The Albany Herald, Ga.
·2 min read

Dec. 12—ALBANY — While equipment malfunction has temporarily thwarted Mike's Country Store from making a Santa-like $10,000 delivery to the Feeding the Valley Food Bank, officials at the food bank say they're just excited for the donation from businessmen Bob Brooks and Mike Rogers of food that will provide up to 8,300 meals for the food-deprived in southwest Georgia.

Brooks contacted Rogers, who owns five Mike's Country Stores in the region, including two in Dougherty and one in Lee counties, and told Rogers he wanted to partner with him in making a $10,000 food donation to the food bank. Rather than gathering up items he might have considered essential at the food bank, Rogers reached out to Feeding the Valley and asked them what items were most needed.

"That was very unusual, having someone make such a large donation reach out and ask what items we needed most," Feeding the Valley Site Manager Cheryl Maddox said Monday. "We very much appreciate them doing that. We were able to request specific items that aren't typically donated. That means a lot."

Rogers had the food trucked in to his Gillionville Road store in Dougherty County at the end of last week, but issues with equipment forced Mike's staff to postpone their planned Friday delivery until Tuesday.

Maddox said the benefit of the donation made by Brooks and delivered by Rogers would have an impact beyond the estimated 8,300 meals the food will provide.

"We typically do 5,000 food boxes a month, but this will help us do a lot more," she said. "We'll have more food to deliver to after-school programs, to the YMCA, to Easter Seals, to the Kids Cafe program.

"It also benefits that they ordered the food and are bringing it to us. Our only part in it has been telling them what we wanted. The beauty of these kinds of donations is that we are getting a lot of phone calls now from agencies telling us they have a lot of people in need."

And while Maddox said, oddly enough, that donations in the summer typically surpass those made during the holidays, the idea of giving is accentuated during this time of year.

"Companies and individuals seem to want to contribute a lot during this time of year, and that can be magnified during the holiday season," she said. "A contribution like this, though, when Mr. Brooks and Mr. Rogers were responsible for bringing in a truckload of food, that's going to go a long way toward getting us through the holidays and into the new year."