Planting Seeds to Address Food Insecurity and Improve Child Well-Being in Echols County

June 25, 2025 Print This Post

Echols County Family Connection aims to educate families and children about healthy eating habits, expose them to nutritious fruits and vegetables, and increase access to balanced meals. The goal—to help all children succeed in school.

“School success depends on the family’s health and wellness,” said Karen Black, Echols County Family Connection coordinator. “If children are hungry, they can’t focus. A healthy diet, which supports brain health and cognitive abilities, is linked to better academic performance in the classroom.”

The latest Georgia KIDS COUNT data shows 31.6% of children living in poverty in Echols County, compared to Georgia’s rate of 18.8%. The rate of children enrolled in Georgia Pre-K from low-income families is 72.7%, compared to 47.1% in Georgia.

Echols 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 local partners, Georgia Family Connection Partnership (GaFCP) provides technical assistance, training, small grants, and convening power to support local efforts.

Echols County Family Connection collaborated with the Senior Citizen/Nutrition Center to host a Senior Hunger Coalition meeting in 2024, gathering local leaders to brainstorm and develop ideas centered on getting more healthy foods to the community.

One idea that resulted from this collaboration was Echols Market Days, which are running on the second Saturday from May through September. Farmers and backyard growers gather at the Community Center Pavilion to exchange fresh produce—while families and seniors access fresh fruits, vegetables, eggs, honey, milk and other homemade items.

During a monthly manna drop from Second Harvest of South Georgia held at the Community Center Pavilion, Family Connection spreads the word about new opportunities and events taking place to 275 families.

Helping Young Learners Make Healthy Choices

Through Allen Statenville Library’s Summer Reading Program in 2024, 91 children and 81 adults tasted fresh fruits and vegetables, read books about eating healthy, and received recipes and seeds so they could grow their own vegetables.

Family Connection is providing a new recipe each week at the library in 2025 in conjunction with recipes at Echols Market Days. Families are encouraged to visit the library often to find all the recipes—and can also receive recipes at Echols Market Days on tables offering fresh produce.

Family Connection helps parents and children learn about healthy eating in schools by:

● providing books, puzzles, and games about fruits and vegetables to elementary schools to encourage families to include these in their diets at home;
● providing similar learning items for migrant preschool readiness home visits for 3- and 4-year-olds;
● providing learning tools in pre-K classrooms where teachers have incorporated “cooking stations” for children to prepare and taste fruits and vegetables;
● providing a stove for a classroom in the 4-H office that will be utilized in the District Project Achievement’s program activities;
● partnering with Echols County School Nutrition and Second Harvest of South Georgia to provide food for children birth through 18 through the Seamless Summer Feeding Program; and
● partnering with Echols Georgia Farm Bureau to provide extra materials for their “Ag in the Class” lessons for elementary students.

When Joshua Spradley became Echols County Farm Bureau’s office manager in 2024, Black reached out to provide valuable insight and establish a partnership that’s led to projects like constructing a new community raised garden bed and planting pollinator flowers at the library with the help of a “Sprout Squad” comprised of local kids.

“Mrs. Karen helped me make connections with school faculty and encouraged me with information and ideas for ‘Ag in the Class,’” said Spradley. “She wanted to combine our resources to not only feed local children but also get them excited about and involved in growing their own food.”

New Partnerships Taking Root to Reach All Families

A new partnership with the Boys and Girls Club of Echols will ensure children receive a snack and evening meal at their after-school program that’s projected to launch in January 2026. Black said there’s also talks of building in a large walk-in cooler for more storage the county could use for food distribution opportunities.

Family Connection established Friends of Faith in March to strengthen their active network of partners who help uncover, assess, and address community needs.

“We’re struggling with significant communication challenges in Echols, because we have no daily newspaper and because our community members are engaging on diverse social media platforms,” Black explained. “Our churches can help us get the word out to more people about resources.”

During the inaugural Friends of Faith meeting, Family Connection proposed that churches implement mini pantries into their service plans and offered funding to cover start-up costs like shelving, the Second Harvest membership fee, and the first food purchase. Feedback from church leaders revealed that the paperwork can be complicated.

“Second Harvest is willing to help churches work through the paperwork, but none have committed to get involved in this capacity yet,” Black said. “Some churches also do their own giveaways and feel they’re meeting people’s needs in this way for now.”

Echols County Family Connection will continue to facilitate Friends of Faith meetings to generate ideas to improve food access and keep lines of communication open.

“We’re constantly learning how to better meet our community’s needs,” said Black. “A lot of our county’s deficits were unidentified because no one was talking about them. By starting conversations in the community, more people from a variety of sectors are getting involved with this work.”

Family Connection is collecting data this year centered on gaps in food access, with surveys distributed to families with children 18 and under, as well as households with seniors 65 and older. A new volunteer group has been established within Family Connection, and the Collaborative is building a database to identify helpers and ways of getting news out.

Black pointed out that the need to address food access at the county level was discussed during the latest Echols County Commissioners Comprehensive Planning Meeting with the Southern Georgia Regional Commission—and it’s being written into their five-year comprehensive plan to investigate even more ways to support this need.

“The ideas just keep growing regarding how we can involve others as new connections take root,” said Black. “We’re planting seeds right now, and we’re looking forward to what will grow out of these efforts that have quickly blossomed in our small community.”

 

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

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