A food distribution center that started because of the pandemic last year has given out its last pallets of food.

Since May of 2020, ten non-profits have been coming weekly to the Cobb Community Food Fleet to pick up supplemental boxes of food and distribute them to at least 50 different locations for families in need.

Shari Martin, president and CEO of the Cobb Community Foundation, says the effort was a joint initiative with Noonday Association of Churches. The Atlanta Braves also contributed the use of the stadium’s massive refrigerator and loading docks for the first of three distribution center sites.

During the last 15 months, 168,000 boxes containing a week’s worth of food have been distributed to families in need all over the county.

“There are families that would not have had the food that they needed, and there’s really not a better feeling than helping others,” Martin tells WSB’s Sandra Parrish.

The vast majority was provided through the USDA’s Farmers to Families program. Now that the federal program has ended, county commissioners have approved $1.5 million from its share of the American Rescue Plan to fund the non-profits so the Food Fleet is no longer needed.

“There’s a degree of sadness with that, but there’s also a feeling of accomplishment.  But most importantly, it’s just feeling that we did something that really made a difference,” says Martin.

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