By Thea Jarvis

One year ago this month, the archdiocesan Five for Food program was launched, offering a grass-roots solution to the problem of hunger in north Georgia.

The Five for Food approach, borne of the creative, caring heart of Cathedral parishioner Marguerite Oberg and implemented through the central office of the St. Vincent de Paul Society in Atlanta, operates on a simple premise: if enough people donate a small amount of money each month towards the purchase of food, hungry men, women and children who find themselves short on funds and low on food will have something substantial to put on their supper tables each day.

The program has made positive inroads in the gray area of poverty in America, an area that threatens to include more and more people as the country continues to reel from the effects of a slumping economy.

Over the past year, approximately 3,000 families have been directly assisted with food through the program. A total of nearly $30,000 has been donated by people throughout the archdiocese and as far away as Nevada.

Donations of $60 or more for the year, given in a lump sum, have come from 193 people. Those giving $5 per month or a small, one-time donation have numbered 264. The Five for Food moniker, of course, derives from the initial request for $5 each month from as many as could participate in the program.

One anonymous donor has sent a total of $1260 since last February, enclosing with each cash offering a paper with the words, “Praise, honor and glory to you, Lord Jesus Christ, for the poor,” inscribed.

Before the Five for Food program began, St. Vincent de Paul and churches in the archdiocese frequently had difficulty keeping food pantries stocked.

Sharon Maddox, a caseworker at the Howell Place headquarters of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, relates that downtown food supplies would generally last only half a month. Seasonal donations of canned goods at Thanksgiving and Christmas augmented the larder, but months like January and February were usually low points.

Because of such a limited supply, families who came to St. Vincent de Paul for assistance would only receive a one or two day food ration. Now, says Ms. Maddox, the Society can be more generous.

“We can give a nice, balanced meal,” that includes extras like milk, butter and seasonings – “good nutritious meals that can be tasty, too,” she adds.

The St. Vincent de Paul Society, like most service organizations, assists people according to need. Among the poor, the need for food can be overwhelming, despite the fact that it is a basic commodity most take for granted.

Of the clients who come to St. Vincent’s seeking food assistance, Sharon Maddox observed, “It used to be mostly families with children. Now, it’s all types.”

One mother of five came to the Society requesting food not only for her own family, but for the three extra children – aged three, four and five – who were left with her one day for babysitting.

Their mother, unfortunately, never returned to claim the children. They were, for all intents and purposes, abandoned, and the woman at the door of the old Howell Place headquarters had made the decision to care for them herself.

Food from the Vincentian pantry, supplied by the Five for Food coffers, saw her through the worst of a difficult situation. Funds from the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program (AFDC) and increased food stamps further alleviated the family’s desperate plight. The woman did not request additional help from the Society.

“I felt good about this,” said Sharon Maddox. “She followed through,” using available resources to deal with the problem.

Many of those helped with food receive counseling in budgeting and basic economics along with the bags of groceries they take home.

“We try to get to what the problem is and try to work with it,” Ms. Maddox explained.

For those who are only passing through, foods that are quick and easy to open and prepare are what St. Vincent de Paul makes available. Families living in automobiles, which Ms. Maddox claims is “getting commonplace,” are supplied peanut butter, milk, cold cereal and canned meats.

The manpower required to fuel this all-out attack on hunger consists of a small group of willing workers, headed by the dynamic team of John and Marguerite Oberg.

From the start, the Obergs decided that Five for Food overhead was to be minimal. Money received was to go directly to those who needed it, in the form of food.

For this reason, no receipts or year-end reports are issued to donors, cutting down on bookkeeping, paper and postage. Those who wish a record of their donations or a rundown on Five for Food’s fiscal operations are invited to contact Mrs. Oberg for a full accounting over the phone.

With their priorities firmly established, the Obergs have time and energy to devote to the job of buying and overseeing the foodstuffs that are the heart and soul of their enterprise.

Once a month, they climb in the cab of the spacious St. Vincent de Paul truck and make a run out to the Associated Grocers in College Park.

“He’s the truck driver, I’m the helper,” Mrs. Oberg explains with good humor. “I do all the buying.”

Because she has been in charge of the kitchen at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Cancer Home since 1975, Marguerite Oberg is skilled in her role as chief food purchaser. She frequents local grocery to take advantage of weekly specials and has begun using the downtown Food Bank, where all food is sold at just 10 cents a pound.

At this point, store managers give her a call when they have something in stock that they think might especially suite the Five for Food pantry.

“They are most courteous and try to accommodate me in any way,” Mrs. Oberg says gratefully.

Chickens, hams and hot dogs have now been added to the Five for Food budget since the welcome donation of a freezer made storing sale-priced meats possible.

These meats, along with canned goods and boxed staples purchased by the Obergs, are kept at the St. Vincent de Paul headquarters in southwest Atlanta. People needing food come directly to Howell Place for pickup, although special arrangements are sometimes made for the elderly.

Shelving to hold the food was constructed and installed by generous Vincentian volunteers, who are presently getting ready to tackle a ramp to facilitate the unloading of supplies from the St. Vincent de Paul truck.

The logistics of getting thousands of dollars of groceries in and out of the truck would be overwhelming, Mrs. Oberg said, were it not for the strong hands and willing hearts of the maintenance crew at nearby St. Anthony’s Church, who have, on occasion, been aided by some able-bodied students from St. Anthony’s School.

People pulling together have made the Five for Food program a success in just 12 short months, and Marguerite Oberg knows the second year of operation will bring more people together on both ends.

“We’d like to see all parishes participating and all getting the benefit of the program,” says Mrs. Oberg, who realizes that, because of St. Vincent’s metro location, most of the food is now distributed in the confines of the inner city.

Urban areas have no prior claim on food supplies, she emphasizes, noting that the program is meant to be available to communities throughout the archdiocese, even those in the more remote rural outposts.

Expanding Five for Food in fact, as it has already been expanded in theory, is one of the goals set by the Obergs for the year ahead. A collection of $50,000 by next February is the hoped-for 1983-84 total.

“We don’t yet have 500 people participating,” Mrs. Oberg said, anticipating the prospects such growth could mean for the hungry. “There are a lot of people out there who could help.”