Morton Memorial Food Ministry Benefits from Hunger Walk

by Bailey Basham, Messenger Intern
Last year, more than 250 donors, sponsors and walkers raised $14,547 to support programs designed to alleviate food insecurities on the Mountain with the Rotary Hunger Walk. Planning for the second Hunger walk continues.
The goal of the Rotary Hunger Walk, scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 3, is to bring awareness to the poverty present in the greater Sewanee community and to raise money to support local organizations working to alleviate food insecurity.
Money raised from registration fees, sponsorships and community donations goes to support food ministries led by the Community Action Committee at Otey Parish in Sewanee and the Morton Memorial Food Bank in Monteagle.
“The Food Ministries at Morton Memorial UMC is a food bank that serves more than 12,000 pounds of food to about 100 families in the community every second Saturday of the month,” said John Noffsinger, co-chair of the Rotary Hunger Walk and a member of the Morton food ministry team. “Morton partners with the Chattanooga Area Food Bank (CAFB), which is a member of Feeding America.”
Noffsinger said the money raised by the Hunger Walk greatly benefited the food ministry at Morton.
“With the money raised from the first Hunger Walk, the food distribution team was able to purchase wagons to make it easier to carry food to the cars. We were also able to purchase new freezers, plus a lot more food for distribution.”
Those receiving the aid of the food ministry on those Saturdays are known as Morton’s “Saturday family.”
“On Thursday afternoon before the second Saturday of the month, trucks arrive from the Chattanooga Food Bank with more than 12,000 pounds of food. The unloading and repackaging process is handled by some of our Saturday family members, as well as community members, Rotarians and our church members,” said Noffsinger. “Then on Saturday morning, the process of registering, helping select the foods the participants want and carrying the food to their cars begins. Some months we will help 90 to 100 families, while some months the number can jump to 150 families.”
The food ministry at Morton Memorial United Methodist Church aims to do one thing: help the members of the greater Sewanee community.
“Our goal is to help local families with their food insecurity because the majority of the families in the Grundy and Marion county areas don’t have enough food to get through the month. We provide them with supplemental food once a month,” said Amy Wilson, Director of the Food Ministry at Morton.
Wilson works on a volunteer basis for the food ministry, along with 40 others. Roughly 10 percent of the volunteers at Morton are also recipients of aid from the food ministry.
On average, the food ministry serves 110 families a month, which represents a minimum of 320 adults and children.
Wilson, who has been helping with the food ministry since 2013, is in charge of ordering food from the Chattanooga area food bank and making sure distribution of the food to families goes smoothly.
“I want to make sure I have enough for the families to have a certain number of meals and to make sure we have our volunteers there that day,” said Wilson. “I’m just there to make sure it gets done, and with the volunteers, it kind of runs itself since we’ve been doing it for so many years now.”
Wilson has been helping with the Morton food ministry for three years, but even before that, she was working to help those in her community.
“There was a food pantry at Morton before, and I had volunteered there for a couple of years. That model went away, and when that happened, I approached the church with a different model. The model we went with is called choice party, and it’s like a little grocery store,” said Wilson. “Instead of prepackaging food boxes, people get to choose what they want. If they don’t want a certain thing, they don’t have to take it and that eliminates waste.”
Wilson said that she and the rest of the Morton volunteers recognized that many of the community members receiving food from the ministry had health issues that would be exacerbated by unhealthy foods. Thanks to help from the CAFB, healthy foods are an option for those coming to get food from the ministry.
“Our model is based on whole grains, fruits, vegetables and proteins. We’re doing a pilot program with Chattanooga Food Bank now called Produce Empowerment Program (PEP), and that ensures that we receive 3,500 extra pounds of fresh produce every month,” said Wilson. “We choose to emphasize fruits, vegetables, grains, proteins and dairy for the foods we offer. By providing fresh produce and other nutritious foods that our clients might not purchase at the grocery store because of the cost, we are also providing them the opportunity to try new foods like lentils, coconut milk and rutabagas. For some items, we cook samples that the clients can try or provide recipes.”
For Wilson, the best part about being involved with the food ministry is knowing she is making a difference for her neighbors and family.
“My favorite part is helping my family and helping the people that I know in trying to do something good and positive. I am from here, and my family is from Grundy County. I have family members who come to the food pantry, and knowing that I am literally helping my own family in addition to helping my neighbors— it’s amazing,” said Wilson.
The Second Annual Rotary Hunger Walk will be Saturday, Sep. 3. For more information, visit Facebook.com/SewaneeHungerWalk.