Ministry offers signature food boxes, economic assistance

Autumn Glover has a lot of mouths to feed.

Between her husband and their three children, there was a time when she was spending close to $150 a week on food.

Three months ago, though, she began buying most of her monthly groceries through Angel Food Ministries, a discounted grocery program.

She usually buys four of Angel Food’s Signature Boxes — which include meat, vegetables, milk, eggs and other staples — at $30 a piece, plus two After School Boxes at $24 each.

“It’s $168, and I’m feeding my family for the month,” she says. “It is wonderful.”

Glover was one of 174 people who came to Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Lynchburg, one of several local Angel Food host sites, to pick up her order last weekend.

The program, which began in Georgia in 1994, serves hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. every month.

Locally, there are eight host sites spread out in Lynchburg, Amherst, Bedford and Lynch Station; most are churches, but other community organizations can participate, too.

During the first part of each month, a host site takes orders, which are then turned in to the headquarters in Georgia. For each box that is ordered, Angel Food gives that host site $1 toward its own benevolence fund or outreach ministry.

“We provide a ministry to get more money to do other ministries,” explains Heather Diehl, Bethlehem Lutheran’s side coordinator.

There are no requirements, financial or otherwise, to order from Angel Food.

“We don’t check household size,” says Diehl. “I don’t ask how much you make when you come in.

“If you eat, you qualify.”

Participants include families, young couples, seniors and even college students.

“You see people of every economic level,” says Lynn Suwala, one of Bethlehem’s volunteers. “It tells you that it’s a good deal.”

The fresh and frozen food comes in one of 12 different boxes, which range in price from $16 to $35.

None of it is secondhand, damaged or out-of-date. Angel Food deals directly with food suppliers, buying in bulk at a reduced rate, which allows them to sell it for a fraction of the original price, Diehl says.

The $30 Signature Box, for example, has a retail value of closer to $60 or $70 and, according to Angel Food’s website, should

feed a family of four for

one week or a single senior citizen for a month.

“I could not believe the amount of food,” says Elizabeth Brown, a Lynchburg resident who started using the program three months ago, when she found herself in a tight financial spot.

“You absolutely cannot buy that in the grocery store (for that price). If it wasn’t for this, I’d probably be eating Ramen Noodles.”

For Bethlehem volunteers, Angel Food delivery day, held once a month, starts at around 6:30 a.m., when a number of them gather at the FedEx office on Odd Fellows Road, which acts as the drop site for this area.

Drop-site coordinator Mark Johnston says they usually have 10 to 12 host sites — some from as far away as Roanoke — picking up there each month, and a total of about 20,000 pounds of food.

“When you can buy 70 dollars worth of food for 30 bucks, you can’t touch it,” he says of the program’s popularity. “People who are struggling to get by now have an opportunity. (But) it’s not a handout. You are actually buying food. You’re just paying less.”

Volunteers bring the orders back to their pick-up location, where customers can come to get them during a predetermined time period.

At Bethlehem, which has been participating in the program for almost two years and averages between 100 and 200 boxes a month, the operation is a well-oiled machine operated by about 30 volunteers.

“It takes the whole church to keep it going,” says volunteer Mike Suwala.

Between 8:30 and 10 a.m., customers check in to receive cards representing each box they’ve purchased and are then led through the church to pick them up. Everything is pre-paid for in advance — by cash, credit card or food stamps — either online or at one of the host sites, which are open on certain days and times to take the Angel Food orders.

The specialty boxes, which are already packed, are picked up first, and the Signature Boxes, which volunteers assemble onsite with the customer so they know exactly what they’re getting, last.

“We get to talk to them (then),” Diehl says. “It’s not just, ‘Hi, here’s your food. See ya.’”

Once the boxes are assembled, the customer checks out, and their items are handed off to yet another volunteer who brings it out to their car.

Not only does the program eliminate some financial stress, it’s also much quicker than your typical grocery store visit. Depending on the size of the line, Angel Food customers are usually in and out within a matter of minutes, with a month’s worth of food

“This is,” says volunteer Maurice Bell, “door-to-door service.”