By Haley Harward
When restaurants started to shut down back in March, the fate of Atlanta’s restaurant industry – and its thousands of employees – was thrown up into the air. For Michael Lennox, founder and CEO of Electric Hospitality, the question then became not when will restaurants close, but how to help when they do?
Lennox acted quickly, founding the #AtlFamilyMeal in March. The nonprofit is a collection of restaurants, foodservice businesses, community leaders and creatives that came together in an effort to provide food, jobs and resources for those in the hospitality community experiencing food insecurity and joblessness in Metro Atlanta. With more than 500,000 hospitality industry workers in Georgia – two-thirds of them in Metro Atlanta – not everyone has been able to return to their jobs even after restaurants began to reopen in May due to less demand and fewer dining rooms open.
“Our mission then and now is to feed, nourish and support hospitality workers and their families experiencing joblessness and food insecurity in metro Atlanta,” Lennox says.
Comprised of community chefs, restaurant owners, suppliers and participating hospitality groups including Gina and Linton Hopkins, Willy’s Mexicana Grill, King of Pops and Fox Bros (along with Electric Hospitality’s group of restaurants Ladybird Grove & Mess Hall, Golden Eagle and Muchacho), #AtlFamilyMeal prepares and delivers family meals to out-of-work professionals. Simultaneously, the non-profit reimburses the otherwise underutilized restaurant kitchens, allowing them to retain their staff and keep the lights on. (GRA CEO Karen Bremer is also on the Board of Directors.)
#AtlFamilyMeal has since expanded its reach by partnering with other non-profits in the area. In a collaborative effort, they have been able to establish larger-scale programs.
“We’ve done a bunch of large feeding programs with the Latin American Association and are currently working on one with the Atlanta Food Bank and Second Helpings,” Lennox says. “These programs are getting large quantities of food to families in the hard-hit, sort of forgotten pockets of the city and metro area.”
The current collaborative endeavor between Second Helpings Atlanta and #AtlFamilyMeal is an extension of Second Helpings Atlanta and Atlanta Community Food Banks’ Atlanta Community Kitchen Project, which launched earlier this summer to address the rising rates of food insecurity. From September through the remainder of October, the partnership aims to unite local, grassroots initiatives to source and provide 20,000 meals for disadvantaged Atlantans and generate much-needed revenue for local restaurants.
“Food insecurity is skyrocketing in our community,” says Andrea Jaron, executive director of Second Helpings Atlanta. “As the city’s leading non-profit organization rescuing surplus food and distributing it to those in need, we are able to use our expertise to partner with an impactful organization like #AtlFamilyMeal and connect their generous food donations to our network of benefiting agencies.”
#AtlFamilyMeal also held a virtual food and music festival recently, Feed the Fam, to celebrate Atlanta’s culinary and creative communities and benefit metro-Atlanta hospitality workers. The event featured chefs Kevin Gillespie, Todd Richards, Zeb Stevenson, Virginia Willis and the celebrated Atlanta restaurant Kimball House as well as music performances by Rose Hotel, Lunar Vacation, Mattiel, Taylor Alexander, Omni and more.
Participants could enter a raffle, make donations and order a seven-course “TV Dinner” feast for two provided by locally renowned chefs that was then delivered to their door on the day of the event. All proceeds from donations and raffle entries went directly to
#AtlFamilyMeal so they can continue giving back to the Atlanta community.
While Lennox initially founded #AtlFamilyMeal as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, his ambitions for the non-profit span much further.
“Our immediate response to the crisis has been focused on food,” he says. “But we see the need to couple that with a holistic array of job and workforce development programming over time that can provide skills and opportunities for folks that need to get back into the workforce.” On a philosophical level, #AtlFamilyMeal will provide long-term development opportunities to help people become more economically resilient and succeed in the workplace.
From a more concrete perspective, #AtlFamilyMeal seeks a space to cultivate this development-oriented vision.
“We’re exploring opportunities to find a brick and mortar space…[to] use as an organic human development ecosystem to bring people in, build them up and help them find their footing with their next chapter.”
The physical space would potentially act as a form of neighborhood market complete with catering, food production and training facilities and possible food business incubation programs.
To donate, volunteer or join the #AtlFamilyMeal network, go to atlfamilymeal.org. All donations to #AtlFamilyMeal go toward feeding, nourishing and supporting hospitality workers.
This article first appeared in Restaurant Informer‘s October 2020 issue. To read the full issue, visit the magazine issues page. Do you work in the Georgia’s restaurant trade? Sign up to receive a free subscription to Restaurant Informer and the monthly Enews.
