Brooks County Family Connection Uses Community Insight to Boost Food Access

April 17, 2025 Print This Post

The latest Georgia KIDS COUNT data shows 25.5% of individuals living in poverty in rural Brooks County—nearly double Georgia’s average of 12.9%—which can lead to food insecurity and several other risk factors. To determine how to best address this issue, Brooks County Family Connection reached directly out to the community for guidance.

Conducting food access surveys provided valuable insight regarding at-home family situations that were made more precarious due to recent natural disasters that greatly impacted the county’s most vulnerable residents.

“Through this evaluation process, we discovered that our food insecurity numbers pre-Hurricane Helene were around 18%—while it’s around 33% post-Hurricane Helene,” said Brooks County Family Connection Executive Director Natalie Singletary. “We’ve shared this information at our Collaborative table and throughout the community, and we’re using it to shape our initiatives and seek funding.”

Brooks County Family Connection is one of four Collaboratives participating in an effort to implement a systems change approach to increase access to healthy food that launched in 2024. With support from Georgia Health Initiative and several Implementing partners, Georgia Family Connection Partnership (GaFCP) provides technical assistance, training, small grants, and convening power to support local efforts.

Brooks County Family Connection kickstarted its efforts to boost food access through an 18-month Georgia Department of Care and Learning (DECAL) Community Transformation Grant awarded in January 2023.

“We’ve been successful in securing this kind of funding due to the quality and willingness of our partners,” said Singletary. “We’re blessed with partners who want to make a difference.”

Pastor Jim Pitt of Morven Baptist Church, who has partnered with Family Connection for more than 25 years on projects like Backpack Buddies and Ministerial Association food distribution events, said everyone is invited to and included at the table.

“We all want our community to grow, and we want better things for our people. We know one entity cannot do it all, so it takes all of us working together,” said Pitt. “Family Connection allows us to come together and collaborate. We’ve seen the benefits of this over time—such as increases in literacy, people being able to take care of themselves, and young people taking on an active role as leaders when they grow up.”

Grant funding has allowed Family Connection to:

• host 27 produce drops;
• distribute 97,425 pounds of food to families;
• maintain four community pantries;
• help support two Backpack Buddies programs which distribute 65 bags per week;
• host 31 Family Food Fairs featuring food box distributions and live cooking demonstrations;
• distribute 1,830 resource kits and 6,401 books;
• support the completion of a Literacy Bus program;
• provide literacy materials and food initiatives to the Brooks County Early Learning Center, Brooks County Head Start Center, and Brooks County Public Library;
• provide 200 take-home gardens to families with information encouraging at-home gardening and nutritious eating; and
• provide 7,880 school supplies to Brooks County Schools.

 

The funding has also allowed Family Connection to conduct and attend trainings as well as lead ongoing evaluation. This will carry into April 2027 thanks to a two-year Community Transformation Grant from DECAL, which will again include a food access component.

“We recently used our survey findings in a grant proposal that could help us distribute food for the next two years,” said Singletary. “While we haven’t been awarded this funding yet, the grantors were impressed we had this data and are using it to shape our focus moving forward.”

The Collaborative also created several targeted resources, including a recipe guide for 150 families and a resource guide for health providers. Several trainings have also been offered throughout the community.

A major part of this work includes presenting its findings across the county, and Brooks County Family Connection’s food access efforts have connected more than 50 partners.

“Our findings show that food insecurity affects many other at-risk factors in a community and is a co-occurring health disparity to major issues like substance abuse and mental health,” said Singletary. “When our partners see a gap, they immediately want to know what to do to help close that gap.”

Addressing food insecurity is feeding into Brooks County Family Connection’s three primary goals:

1. developing programs to support school readiness and improve literacy,
2. developing and streamlining programs and services to decrease youth substance use, and
3. developing and streamlining programs and services to decrease food insecurity in Brooks County.

Having a dedicated pool of partners has helped Family Connection gain the momentum necessary to move the needle.

“My mentor taught me you can only move at the speed of trust,” said Singletary, who noted that the Collaborative aims to consistently provide accurate, trustworthy data; show up for, and support, their partners; and “crowd source” input to ensure everyone’s ideas and goals are embedded into planning and implementing initiatives.

One example of this is the Collaborative hosting a food distribution in partnership with the school Literacy Specialist during one of its Literacy Bus events. “We’re all accomplishing our objectives, and strong partnerships enhanced this already existing initiative,” said Singletary.

Brooks County Family Connection meets quarterly, and everyone in the community is invited to the table. “We feel like a big family in our Collaborative,” said Singletary. “We want to make sure people walk away from our meetings and events feeling like their time was well spent.”

If you’re interested in joining Brooks County Family Connection’s efforts or want to schedule a presentation or training, contact Singletary at 229-588-2340 (ext. 3019) or bcfc@brooks.k12.ga.us.

Contact:
Krystin Dean
GaFCP Communications Specialist
706-897-4711
krystin@gafcp.org

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