Volunteers team up on MLK Day to provide food, 'glimmer of light'
Martin Luther King Jr. Day isn’t a day off, Tameka Allen said. It’s a day on.
That’s what brought her and several of her sisters in the Zeta Xi Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority to The Master’s Table soup kitchen on Fenwick Street on Monday.
“We wanted to make sure we got out and did what we could to serve our community,” said Allen, the alumna chapter’s president. “We’re here as part of our initiative to serve.”
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MLK Day is the only federal holiday designated as a national day of service, attracting volunteers to the downtown arm of Golden Harvest Food Bank that provides hot meals to people who are homeless or otherwise grapple with food insecurity.
Volunteers onsite also assisted with another nonprofit, Project Refresh, to provide new clothes, hygiene kits and a shower – courtesy of a portable shower unit – to homeless Augustans.
Monday wasn’t the first time Augusta Mayor Garnett Johnson has volunteered at Master’s Table, but it was his first time since being sworn in as the city’s 85th mayor. The service day helps to “add more light to the needs of servicing our burgeoning homeless population,” he said.
An estimated 512 Augustans are experiencing homelessness, according to the 2020 Richmond County Point-in-Time Count.
“It used to be concentrated in downtown, but now you can go to south Augusta. You’ve got people sleeping under bridges, sleeping in the woods all around our city,” Johnson said. “If we can address that, if we can provide a glimmer of light for somebody to help somebody get on their feet, we’re all in support of that.”
Soup kitchen manager LaDonna Doleman jokingly dubbed herself “the mayor of food” as she delivered a pep talk to volunteers before the meal lines opened. Even for people with more reliable access to food, prices and shortages on supermarket shelves can be “scary,” she said.
“But down at The Master’s Table soup kitchen ... every meal matters, and we are changing lives every day,” Doleman said.
Golden Harvest helps provide food to more than 300 partner agencies in 25 Georgia and South Carolina counties. Last year, the food bank distributed almost 12 million meals. Guests visiting The Master’s Table increased 23% in 2022.
This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Volunteers team up on MLK Day to provide food, 'glimmer of light'
