Vanessa Bowman reached her financial breaking point last year when her car broke down and she had to cut back on her family’s food budget to afford another one.
The 62-year-old disabled grandmother and her sister, Elsie, were two of more than 800 people from across the region who visited a weekly food giveaway recently, run by Reflections of Trinity, a nonprofit group distributing groceries, educational supplies, and other necessities.
Bowman said the Reflections of Trinity event in Powder Springs, located 20 miles west of downtown Atlanta, is one of the few local food distribution centers offering perishable items — such as milk, eggs, and fresh fruits and veggies — instead of just canned goods.
Bowman is one of a growing number of people in the Atlanta area who depend on food donations to get by. Multiple hunger relief agency leaders and elected officials contacted for this story said food insecurity in the region may be worse now than ever before.
Reflections of Trinity founder and CEO Laurie Wong, who launched the nonprofit thrift store and food distribution center 21 years ago, said the growing need is largely a result of the spiraling cost of groceries and housing.
That’s what sent Bowman to seek help from the group. She started visiting metro Atlanta food pantries about a year ago when she could no longer afford the high price of groceries. After struggling to get a reliable vehicle, she said she was homeless for a period over the past year because she couldn’t find a landlord who would accept her Section 8 voucher.
Bowman previously relied on public assistance funds to pay for necessities like food and transportation for herself and her two teenage grandchildren who now live with her in Austell. She’s been able to get back on her feet with the help of family and friends and is no longer without a home, but said the weekly food donations she receives have been a lifeline.
“It helps a great deal with the kids and everything, being on a fixed income,” Bowman said. “It kind of gets kind of tight, but this makes that all even out.”
Wong said Reflections of Trinity, which is affiliated with Trinity Chapel Church of God, provides food to an estimated 8,000 individuals each month across 43 counties in north Georgia.
But the group hasn’t come close to serving as many people who want their assistance. Wong said that in 2023, the group distributed roughly 4 million pounds of food to nearly 85,000 people. This year, about 94,000 have come seeking help, but because they’ve received fewer food donations, the group has only been able to give out about 2.3 million pounds of food.
That shortfall in donations has led to an increase in hardship.
“I have seen so many people that are barely surviving,” Wong said. “The root cause is not just groceries, but the increase in shelter [costs]. Struggling families have had to pay a whole lot more in rent and food, so it reduces their disposable income for food. The food budget always gets hit first.”
Reflections of Trinity is one of about 700 north Georgia food distribution nonprofits that receive donations from the Atlanta Community Food Bank, one of the largest hunger relief organizations in the country. Higher food costs have forced more people to visit food pantries this year, which has resulted in less food to go around to each nonprofit, Wong explained.
The food bank’s CEO, Kyle Waide, said the inflation of the past few years has resulted in longer lines outside food giveaway centers throughout the region. He said Black locals like Bowman and her family experience food insecurity at rates two to three times higher than their white counterparts.
“That’s a reflection of the broader economic disparities that exist between Black and white Americans,” Waide said. “More Black neighbors are struggling economically, and that translates into higher rates of food insecurity.”
Ways to Help Locally
Both Wade and Wong said they fear Atlanta’s food insecurity problem will get worse next year if President-elect Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress follow through on announced plans to cut entitlement programs, like Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare, and apply tariffs to imported goods, including produce, beef, and pork. Food industry analysts say those tariffs could result in even higher prices on some grocery store items.
Trump told “Meet The Press” this month that he’s not planning to cut the programs, but, without explaining how, said he intends to make them “more efficient.”
“Obviously, if Medicare gets cut, we’re going to see an increase in the seniors we serve,” Wong said.
Waide called on federal lawmakers to restore the expanded child tax credit that was previously included in President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 pandemic relief package.
Before it expired at the end of 2021,the credit provided American families up to $3,600 a year for children under the age of 6, and $3,000 for kids ages 6-17, lifting millions of children out of poverty. Waide said restoring the credit would directly impact food insecurity in metro Atlanta.
“That child tax credit created more economic opportunity and had a bigger impact on reducing poverty than just about any other public policy action we’ve taken in our lifetimes,” he said. “My hope is that the new administration and the next Congress, among the other things that they’re contemplating … consider bringing back the child tax credit and other policies that give more resources to families.”
In the meantime, Wong said small-business owners, major corporations, and Atlanta families who aren’t struggling financially should consider volunteering or donating money and food to a local food bank this holiday season. She said individual families don’t have to be well off to donate.
“You don’t have to give large amounts,” Wong said. “It’s not an issue of how much. It’s an issue of doing a little consistently. If a lot of us do a little consistently, it fills the gap.”
