COLUMBUS, Ga. - Feeding the Valley Food Bank, the nonprofit that supplies food pantries across an 18-county area that includes Columbus, says less food is coming in than it is used to. "So Feeding the Valley is going through a food shortage," Chief Administrative Officer Jay Cannon told WTVM in a report the station published Sunday, Nov. 8. Cannon said fewer federal and state sources are providing food and that what does arrive is slower to come in, according to the station.

The warning came as the station opened a 10-day food drive that sends its collections to Feeding the Valley and to the Food Bank of East Alabama. The drive, which WTVM calls Share Your Thanks, began Monday, Nov. 9, and runs through Wednesday, Nov. 18. That gives Columbus residents until the middle of next week to add to it.

Where to drop off food

WTVM listed five donation locations for the drive: Sons Chevrolet of Columbus, Sons Ford of Auburn, the Columbus River Dragons, The Medicine Cabinet and Wheelcare Mobility. The station's report did not give street addresses or collection hours for those sites, so donors should check with each business before making a trip. WTVM said it will also hold a one-day drop-off event at its own station on Wednesday, Nov. 18, from 6 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., and the station lists its address as 1909 Wynnton Road in Columbus.

The food bank takes donations directly, too. Feeding the Valley's website says food can be dropped off during normal business hours at 6744 Flat Rock Road in Midland, and it lists those hours as 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday. The main phone number is 706-561-4755.

What the food bank is asking for

Cannon told WTVM that donors should mainly give non-perishable food. The items he named were canned vegetables, canned soups, canned meats, flour, boxed pasta, rice and peanut butter. "Those are the things we'd really love people to focus on," he said.

Feeding the Valley's own food-drive page carries a similar list. It asks for canned proteins, vegetables and fruits, grains such as rice, pasta and oats, and pantry staples such as peanut butter, jelly and soup. The page also lists kid-friendly items, personal care items and cooking basics.

• Canned vegetables, soups and meats
• Canned fruit and other canned proteins
• Rice, boxed pasta, oats and flour
• Peanut butter and jelly
• Kid-friendly foods
• Personal care items

Why food drives matter to the supply

Frank Sheppard, whom the food bank's website lists as president and CEO, told the station that food drives are a large share of what the organization takes in. "They amount to about a million pounds of food that comes in each year and we need the community's help," Sheppard said. He said the WTVM drive alone, counting food and money, has provided enough for about 6,000 to 8,000 meals each year.

Cannon said the food bank was asked to send out 25 donation boxes for this year's drive. "And those 25 donation boxes can be hundreds of pounds of food per donation box," he told the station. Broken down, he said, that amounts to thousands of meals.

The size of the need

Feeding the Valley says on its website that it serves 18 counties, 17 in Georgia plus Russell County, Alabama, an area of 6,200 square miles with about 550,000 people. About 115,000 of those residents are considered food insecure, according to the organization. It works from three warehouses, in Midland, LaGrange and Albany, and is one of eight regional food banks in Georgia.

The website reports that the food bank distributes directly to more than 12,000 food-insecure families a month, works with more than 350 partner agencies and fills about 1,400 backpacks of food for children each week. Its Columbus operation alone distributes enough food for about 8,435,190 meals a year, the site says. The organization was formed in Columbus in 1982 in an 800-square-foot warehouse on Oates Avenue, opened its 31,000-square-foot Flat Rock Road warehouse in 2017 and added 24,000 square feet there in 2024, according to its history page.

If you need food

The food bank's website lists several ways for families to get food. Feeding the Valley's mobile pantry schedule, updated Oct. 29, lists the next Muscogee County distribution for Saturday, Nov. 21, at the National Infantry Museum on Legacy Way, with another on Dec. 19. The schedule says all distributions start around 9 a.m. and that dates and times can change in bad weather.

The food bank's website also has a pantry locator that searches partner agencies by ZIP code. For working families, it runs the Neighbor Market Pantry at the Flat Rock Road warehouse on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4 to 7 p.m., where shoppers pick their own groceries. The site says Neighbor Market visits are by appointment only, require a current pay stub and are limited to every other month.