Schools
Pebblebrook High School Food Pantry Opens in South Cobb
Pebblebrook conducts their first food distribution for families in need.
opened the doors to its new food pantry on Thursday afternoon, in an effort to provide food and personal items to families of students that require additional help in making ends meet.
Families that are offered assistance are chosen by the school counseling facilitator, after the head of household comes to the school and fills out the necessary paperwork, which includes family member and financial information.
Rhonda Smith, founder of Alive Ministeries, Inc., came up with the idea for opening school-run food pantries, after interacting with families in need during her time working in the finance office at .
“I met a lot of people needing help, and I wanted to do something to make that help more accessible to more families. After talking with members of other churches that were also interested in helping out, I decided to form the Alive Ministeries organization,” said Smith.
Most of the items acquired by the food pantry are purchased using donated money and bought at discount using the “extreme couponing” method.
Smith has been using extreme couponing to buy for her own family for quite some time now, and along with starting Alive Ministeries, she began teaching volunteers how to purchase goods for the food pantry at huge discounts.
“We currently have about 70 people that shop for Pebblebrook, , and the food pantries each week,” said Smith. “We give them an envelope with a list of goods we need, along with an amount of money we expect that they will spend.”
According to Smith, the program is supporting approximately 30 to 40 families at present, with the goal being to assist at least 60 families who have students attending the aforementioned schools.
“Last year, we made 272 distributions, to 1,400 individuals, including 900 children in the South Cobb and Marietta locations. We definitely feel we will surpass that this year,” said Smith.
Coming this November, the Pebblebrook student leadership team will be holding their own extreme couponing event, just in time for the upcoming holiday season.
Pebblebrook Principal Zinta Perkins said she is very pleased to have the food pantry located on the school grounds.
“We had an available space, and we want to do everything we can to help support our students, whose families are in need,” commented Perkins.
For more information on how you can help, or to make a donation, please visit the Alive Ministeries, Inc.or the ishopforhungrykids.com websites.
