Athens Transit Department to Tackle Holiday Hunger with “Stuff-a-Bus” Food Drive

This week, the Athens-Clarke County Transit Department is traveling around Athens in a festively-decorated city bus. Every day until Dec. 13, they will be accepting food donations as a part of its ninth annual “Stuff-a-Bus” food drive that benefits the Athens Area Emergency Food Bank.

As reported in The Red & Black, each day from 11 a.m.-6 p.m., Athenians are “encouraged to donate non-perishable food items to help give Athens-area families a Holiday to remember,” according to a press release from ACC Transit Marketing Coordinator Rachel Hopkins.

“Unfortunately, the food bank runs low when it is a high-demand time of the year. So this is something we can do [to help] and we try to make it easy for people to donate by moving around different parts of town,” Hopkins said.

To meet their nutritional requirements for distributed meals, Athens Emergency Food Bank  listed donations including pork and beans, canned tomatoes, canned salmon, spaghetti sauces and canned pastas as the most needed, Hopkins said.

Last year, the food drive garnered over 2,330 lbs of food, which was enough to feed 1,941 families for a single meal, Hopkins said. 

This year, the department’s goal is to receive at least 2,500 lbs in donations.

In 2018, the department donated food to the Food Bank of Northeast Georgia, but 
organizers chose Athens Area Emergency Food Bank this year because they want to be equitable about which agencies they give the food to, Hopkins said.
Here is where the bus will be the rest of this week: 

• Dec. 10 - 11: Athens-Clarke County Library at 2025 Baxter St.
• Dec. 12: The Classic Center at 300 N. Thomas St.
• Dec. 13: Walmart Supercenter at 4375 Lexington Rd.

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