DOING GOD’S WORK: Members of Pineland Baptist Church pass out supplies to drivers in the distribution line.

THOMASVILLE- The City of Thomasville, in partnership with numerous community agencies hosted a meal and kids school supply distribution on Friday morning.

According to Community Outreach and Recruitment Manager Ricky Zambrano, the event saw an early crowd with nearly 200 cars driving through the distribution only 40 minutes into the event.

“Every time is different, but typically the summer events we get busy right from the start,” Zambrano said. “We had an early rush right at 11 a.m.”

Beyond the meals the early crowd saw, Zambrano said their community partners, including Thomasville National Bank and Springhill Missionary Baptist Church, passed out school supplies to any child in need of them.

“I know we have been running through the school supplies at a very high pace,” Zambrano said.

While the turnout for the event was high, Zambrano hopes others who need help and struggle with food insecurity will come to their next Feeding the Community event.

“We all struggle with insecurities and we need to face it head on,” he said. “We are all here to help. We don’t turn anyone way; there’s nothing that says you have to cross this threshold to come by.”

Zambrano urged those in need to understand that this is a community, who partners together to help in any way possible.

“Feeding the Community came as a response to the soup kitchen down the road closing,” Zambrano explained. “The city, led by my boss Dominic Ford, the Executive Director of Human Resources, wanted to do something to help.”

Zambrano said the City started off with smaller events in order to help with the void that was left by the soup kitchen, before eventually growing into a large-scale operation.

“Now, it’s on a yearly calendar and we do about six of these yearly,” he said.

On average, the Feeding the Community event is hosted every two months, with the exception of the holidays. In November and December, the team hosts a feeding event back-to-back, so everyone can have a Thanksgiving and Christmas meal.

“We don’t start right off the bat in January and February, specifically because we now are partnering with the Salvation Army for their weekly feeding program,” Zambrano said. “The City has come in sponsored one of those every month since February. So, if we aren’t doing one of these, we are over there.”

Zambrano sees the partnership with the Salvation Army as another way they can reach more individuals who struggle with food insecurity. Despite their multiple partnerships, Zambrano said there is always room for more partners to come in.

“‘We are blessed with a large variety of partners, but the beauty is there is no set limit to what you can provide,” Zambrano said. “If you can only provide 100 of something, that’s fine. We want to be as inclusive as possible, so that everyone can feel a part of this.”

Zambrano asked anyone interested in future partnerships to reach out to him at 229-227-7041.