Issue link: http://maconmagazine.uberflip.com/i/1532159
February/March 2025 | maconmagazine.com 95 Rodriguez-McClain stands in front of the Centenary Community Fridge in Beall's Hill. harvesting as much as we can and splitting that harvest evenly among these families. We partner with the Society of St. Andrew, and we collect harvests that are donated by farms. That produce usually comes from Tifton or South Georgia, and we'll take a group of volunteers out there. We'll bring back thousands of pounds of produce, and we'll try to connect that to families. Sometimes I get in our little work truck, and I will deliver those things door to door. We try to feed the houses that are in Beall's Hill, which is to our left, and in Napier Heights, which is to our right. We also try to share those harvests with Pleasant Hill. We have our community fridge. It was modeled after the Macon community fridge that's over at Stewart Chapel AME. It's a 24/7 fridge that's cleaned and maintained by volunteers, but it's stocked by the community, in service of the community. People fi ll it, and anyone who needs a quick bite or grocery staples can stop by the fridge any time. No judgment, and trust that whatever's in the fridge is going to be good and safe to eat. We will also stock it with produce from our garden. Another thing we do is quarterly food giveaways. We'll collect diff erent items like gleanings from our garden, but we'll also partner with food distribution centers. There's Dot Foods Company, for example. They have restaurants they supply food to, and sometimes they have to move through product really quickly, but restaurants can't take those products. They donate all those products to us, so we'll drive two and a half hours to Vidalia and collect all of it. We collect food that would ultimately be wasted. We try to collect it before that point, and then share it with families in the area who need it. We have a community breakfast every Sunday. It's coff ee and a hot breakfast, but we also have showers and a clothes closet anyone can come to. That's every Sunday morning, 52 weeks a year. Last year Christmas was on a Sunday, and we did it. It is every single Sunday without fail, and it is often the one meal that a lot of our homeless community can rely on. We usually have between 60 and 70 people a week who show up for that breakfast.