David CookAt last count, more than 54,000 men, women and children in Hamilton County - enough people to fill AT&T Field more than eight times - were food insecure, a wonky term for this heartache: There's not enough money to put enough food on the table.
Imagine that.
A single dad has to choose between asthma medicine for his son and bread on the table.
A retired couple catches the bus to the pawn shop, carrying with them the gold frame around their wedding picture; they'll sell it, then spend all the money on groceries from the dollar store.
Grandmother waters down the milk so it will last longer. Grandfather ignores the expiration date.
One working mother even goes this far: At night, she pretends to be angry with her kids, so angry she sends them to bed without their dinner.
Not because she was truly angry.
There just wasn't any food.
And she didn't want her kids to know.
"This can happen to any of us," said Maeghan Jones.
Jones would know; she's at the forefront of the local anti-hunger movement, the leader of a team - not unlike relief work - that dispatches food to thousands of people living in 20 area counties.
Her organization?
The Chattanooga Area Food Bank.
"Last year, we distributed nearly 11 million meals," said Jones, the Food Bank's president.
We met inside the Food Bank's warehouse near Amnicola Highway. It's 40,000 square feet of hunger prevention that looks something like Lowe's: industrial-sized shelves that almost reach the ceiling, stacked with boxes of, well, just about everything.
Raisins. Pistachios. Corn, fresh and canned. Hot rings in vinegar. Multivitamins. Organic olives. Cinnamon. Lentil soup. Gala apples. Pita chips. Brownies. Dried peaches. Over in the freezer, chicken. Over on the racks, fresh bread.
All said, more than 500 different items donated from manufacturers, big-box stores, local restaurants and farmers. (Even Ironman is donating its leftovers, Jones said.)
"Every day, we feed 20,000 people," the overhead banner reads.
It's a process that blends together a loaves-and-fishes compassion with Amazonian-logistics to create a forward-leaning vision that seeks not just to end hunger, but to promote life.
"It's not enough to fill bellies," said Marisa Ogles, director of development and communications. "We have to nourish."
• Hungry people with vouchers come to the warehouse where workers stuff 80 pounds of groceries into a 50-pound box: dried peaches, French bread, cereal, beans, doughnuts, flour, tomatoes, carrots, so much more - enough for many meals for many people.
• Partner agencies - from nonprofits to church pantries, the Food Bank has more than 300 - pick up a supply of food, which they then take back to distribute among their clients.
• The Food Bank helps to coordinate pick-ups between donor stores and nonprofits; for example, a church in Fannin County can pick up food donations at the nearby Wal-mart instead of driving to Amnicola Highway.
• The Food Bank partners with local farmers to secure fruit and vegetables, a relationship that gives clients access to healthy and fresh food while also encouraging the local food system.
• They write grants to help partner agencies. They'll pick up watermelons from a farmer about to plow, then store them in a walk-in cooler so big it could echo.
They ship extra food from here to a food bank there, then vice versa. They educate - cooking classes, for example - on ways to eat healthier.
"Forty-five percent of our clients have at least one member of their family with diabetes," Jones said.
• To meet the growing problem of hunger in the South, the Food Bank has become more extroverted than ever.
"40 deliveries a month," said Jones.
Thanks to a new IT-logistics system, a fleet of nine delivery trucks and smart people in charge of a complex scheduling system - take a bow, Melissa Blevins - the Food Bank is getting more food to more people by proactively delivering it rather than relying on a come-to-us system of warehousing.
Fresh produce gets to the table faster, rather than sitting on shelves. Agencies, facing greater demand, now receive more food.
All of this done, like a leavening, to help people grow.
"To feed and nourish," Jones said.
Contact David Cook at dcook@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6329. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter at DavidCookTFP.