Making a Connection

FoodFinder app connects people in need of local food resources

said. The app and website are virtually identical – making it easy to use for individuals and families in need, students seeking food outside of school hours and teachers and counselors to make referrals. Each pin on the map shows you the resource’s street address, hours of operation and contact info.

With the platforms in place, FoodFinder expanded their database through research, collaboration with major food banks and input from the field.

Over the next several years, FoodFinder increased its reach to all 50 states; a tall task, especially while Griffin was a fulltime college student at the University of Michigan.

while he was still in high school at Peachtree Ridge in Gwinnett County. He was looking for a volunteer opportunity at a nearby food pantry but had difficulty locating one.

By Clare S. Richie

As the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the U.S., more Americans experienced food insecurity for the first time and were unsure of where to receive emergency food assistance. Thankfully, the FoodFinder app and website was ready to connect thousands of people in need to local food resources.

“We’ve talked with people – folks who had always prided themselves for decades on being able to pay the bills, have a job, make ends meet and because of the pandemic –all of a sudden they need help from food pantries and they didn’t know where their next meal would come from,” said Jack Griffin, FoodFinder’s Founder and CEO.

Like other hunger relief nonprofits, FoodFinder was called to respond to a huge spike in demand due to the impact of COVID-19 on the economy.

“We served an average of 3,000 people per day in March and April, four-times our normal demand,” Griffin said. ”Our daily impact has stabilized to 1,500 people served per day, but that’s still twice our prepandemic average.”

From March through September, the digital resource connected about 22,600 metro Atlanta residents to food assistance.

Griffin, now 22, started FoodFinder

“That online search process was much more difficult than I thought it would be and should be; it was really piecemeal and fragmented. If a food pantry is run out of church, if it’s entirely volunteer run – they may not even have an online presence,” Griffin discovered. ”We could do our part to connect the people looking for help with the places that already offer it, ideally so everyone is better off as a result.”

By May of 2014, Griffin launched the FoodFinder website with a couple dozen food pantries in and around Gwinnett County.

“We got the mobile app up and running in 2016 thanks to our first grant from the Atlanta-based Arby’s Foundation” Griffin

“In the early days, we were told it would be impossible to have a statewide database for even every food pantry in Georgia. Fast forward to FoodFinder today and we’re now a national resource. We have the info of 45,000 different programs across all 50 states and have helped families in more than 10,000 different cities and towns across the U.S.,” Griffin said.

Thanks, in part, to a grant from Walmart Foundation in 2019, the nonprofit’s staff includes Griffin, a Chief Operations Officer and a team of four part-timers to work on data sourcing and verification.

FoodFinder is close realizing its goal of 100 percent nationwide coverage and being first ever database and directory of every food pantry in America.

“We would love to welcome more people into our mission – either to help spread the word or support us directly. For every $10 that someone donates we can connect 200 people across the country to food assistance; a little goes a tremendously long way,” Griffin said.

Find out more at foodfinder.us, or follow on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram at FoodFingerUS.

◄Wine Shoe in Castleberry Hill is under new ownership with Krishna Chapatwala taking over the boutique wine shop at 339 Nelson St. “As a chef with a personal chef and catering business for 10 years, it was a natural fit into the wine industry,” Chapatwala said. :I’ve been offering wine pairings for dinner parties since 2015. Being Indian by birth adds a unique voice to the Atlanta food and wine industry. The A can now boast its first wine shop owned by an Indian woman with extensive culinary background.” Wine Shoe is also offering tastings with social distancing and has recommendations for pairing food with the perfect bottle. For more, visit wineshoeatlanta.com.

Jenny Levison, owner of the five local Souper Jenny cafés, has embarked on The Souper Jenny Kindness Tour – a six week journey that began in mid-October and will take Levison and her friend Meg Gillentine on a cross-country odyssey to perform random acts of kindness and serve up her signature soups. “The need for love and kindness, generosity and benevolence, has never been greater,” said Levison. “During this time of COVID and systemic racism coming to the forefront, I’ve felt the loss, the division, the fear and uncertainty, the illness, the injustices befalling our country and our communities. And I feel a call to action. I can think of no better time to get out there and offer a little love to the country.” Levison and Gillentine are traveling west in an RV, stopping at local farms and orchards to buy their produce and products to turn it into soup and then donate it back to the community. As they head out to California and back east, they plan to feed first responders, people in need and ordinary citizens that just could use a little kindness thrown their way. Follow the journey at instagram.com/followingsouperjenny and facebook.com/jennifer.levison.

Lauren Holley of Atlanta was one of three home cooks honored as part of Bon Appétit and the Mushroom Council’s Blended Burger Project. Holley prepared a Chili Maple Brunch Burger, a breakfast-inspired dish featuring hot Italian ground pork sausage and lean ground turkey blended with pan-roasted shiitake, oyster and crimini mushrooms. The burger is topped with a fried egg, chili-spiced maple syrup, arugula and mushroom “bacon.” Bon Appétit Test Kitchen Editor Chris Morocco cooked and presented the top burgers in a special “virtual” cook-off that can be viewed at.bonappetit.com.

Thanksgiving Guide Restaurants open for dine-in and takeout on Turkey Day

The coronavirus pandemic has upended travel and dining plans for Thanksgiving, but a number of Intown restaurants will be serving socially distanced meals or have a turkey day feast available for takeout.

Fox Bros BBQ: Smoked turkey and ham with all the fixins is on the menu for takeout at the popular DeKalb Ave. restaurant. Orders must be made by Nov. 20 at foxbrosbbq.com.

Murphy’s: The Virginia-Highland restaurant will offer its annual Thanksgiving To-Go turkey meal for takeout or delivery. Orders can be placed at murphysatlanta.com under the Take Out tab.

South City Kitchen Midtown: A prixfixe Thanksgiving menu will be offered for dine-in at the Midtown spot but grab a table quick for timed seating at southcitykitchen.com.

Hard Rock Café: The Downtown tourist favorite is cooking up a Thanksgiving feast for prepurchase at exploretock.com/hardrockcafeatlanta.

Mary Mac’s Tea Room: The iconic Southern restaurant reopens Nov. 2 under new ownership and will be taking orders for its holiday meals at marymacs.com/holidays.

The Sun Dial: Zoom to the top of the Westin Peachtree in Downtown for a special Thanksgiving dinner with a view. Reservations are required at sundialresaturant.com.

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