Food bank officials deny state senator’s claims

ALBANY — Officials with the Second Harvest of South Georgia food bank are denying claims leveled by state Sen. Freddie Powell Sims that the organization, among other charges, accepted $700,000 in compensation for services it didn’t supply in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael, claimed it had no access to electricity following the storm even though a generator had been sent to the agency, and has maintained only a passing presence in Albany to “use our demographics to get grants.”

Sims, D-Dawson, said she’s making the complaints public after hearing from a number of constituents in the Albany area whose organizations have relied on Second Harvest to procure food for their clients.

“I thought Second Harvest was important to our community, and that’s why I worked to get them funding in the state budget,” Sims said, noting that she’d gotten a $25,000 line item appropriation added to the state budget in 2016 that had been included in the state spending plan for the past three fiscal years. She asked, though, that the $25,000 be removed from this year’s budget.

“I’m at wit’s end,” the state senator said. “All I want is for this agency that receives state and local support to treat the people of our region with dignity and respect. They claim that they’re losing $25,000 monthly by operating in Albany, yet they want to re-establish a presence here. Why? I can’t answer that, but I can guess that it has to do with our demographics. When they get ready to apply for grants, our dire economic profile gives them a better opportunity to get money.”

Second Harvest Chief Marketing Officer Eliza McCall, who refuted all of Sims’ charges, said she’s puzzled by the senator’s claims that Second Harvest is seeking to “re-establish itself” in Albany.

“There’s nothing to re-establish,” McCall said. “Second Harvest of South Georgia has never stopped serving the Albany area. We did curtail and eventually discontinue regular shopping hours at our Albany branch due to the need for storm-related repairs and lack of available trained staff. We were open in the days and weeks after the storm. Shopping was only discontinued for approximately 10 weeks. However, our partner agencies have always had access to the food, groceries and supplies they needed. They are able to visit one of our other branches, and we offer deliveries as well. If neither of these options works for them, they had contact information for our staff and could make other arrangements. We realize this was not the most convenient for some of our partners, and we have reinstated those regular shopping hours.

“Schedule changes are always announced to our partner agencies via email and in the wake of the storm via our social media channels. They were also notified by mail in their monthly statements. We have also held open meetings for people to ask questions and express any concerns they may have. We are always looking for ways to improve our operations and value the input of these partners.”

McCall said that Second Harvest did lose money operating the Albany branch, but she said that has not impacted the food bank’s services to agencies in the region.

“Second Harvest of South Georgia’s 30-county service territory is defined by Feeding America, and we have been an affiliate member of the Feeding America network for almost 20 years,” she said. “We are contractually obligated to serve all of those counties, and yes, we do lose a significant amount of money each month operating the Albany branch. However, that does not affect our commitment to feed this community.”

Sims said that Second Harvest opted out of its membership with the Food Bank Association of Georgia, indicating a number of financial irregularities as a possible reason. She said she’d been given evidence that the agency defaulted on a significant loan, that an officer in the company was accused of embezzling a significant amount of money and that Second Harvest had sought and received $700,000 in post-hurricane funding for services it did not supply.

The Dawson Democrat also said the agency received a generator that it could have used in Albany in the aftermath of Michael but instead used it elsewhere.

“We received $700,000 in state funding to help reimburse us for disaster relief work that we performed in southwest Georgia,” McCall responded. “These funds were to be used in all affected areas of the Second Harvest service region. They were appropriated to help offset our extraordinary operational expenses.

“The Senator has alleged that we took this funding under false pretenses and that we did not perform any disaster response work. The numbers tell a different story. Here’s just a snapshot of what we did in the weeks following Hurricane Michael:

♦ 12,000 emergency food boxes distributed;

♦ 55,600 hot meals prepared;

♦ 1,352 linemen fed;

♦ 1,180 government employees and first responders fed;

♦ 400,000 bottles of water distributed;

♦ 81,000 bags of ice distributed;

♦ 18,330 cases of snacks distributed; and

♦ 200,000 MREs distributed.

“In the days before Hurricane Michael made landfall,” McCall added, “we reached out to our contacts at FEMA to request help in securing a large generator to power our Thomasville distribution center when power almost inevitably would fail. With the help of state Rep. Darlene Taylor and U.S. Sen. David Perdue’s staff, we were able to get one and keep power to that branch almost continuously. We never sought, nor did we get, a large commercial generator for our Albany branch. That warehouse is not equipped with a transfer switch without which a commercial generator is useless.”

Sims said a number of Albany-area agencies had complained about the lack of service from Second Harvest.

“I am very fiscally conservative, and I believe in accountability,” she said. “When I put my name on (legislation) supporting an agency, that agency represents my district. From all the complaints I’ve gotten, I don’t believe this is the kind of organization we need in Dougherty County. In fact, since the service is needed, I’d like to see a replacement agency.”

The Rev. Lawrence Knighton of St. James Baptist Church in Baconton said he’d reached out to Sims because of lack of access to Second Harvest. He said the church had had to cancel outreach programs because it wasn’t able to procure food for planned events.

“The Albany branch hasn’t been open in months, and it was open only twice a week prior to that,” Knighton said. “We rely on the food we get from Second Harvest for our community barbecues, and going to Thomasville to get supplies makes it difficult for us.

“What we’d like to see is an agency that operates the way it did before (Hurricane Michael). (Told that Second Harvest officials said they have been open and offered delivery service to Albany for agencies that couldn’t make the trip, Knighton responded:) I didn’t know that, and I don’t think a lot of agencies did. I know we wouldn’t have gone to Thomasville all those times if we’d known.”

In response to other charges made by Sims, McCall said, “We have never asked GFBA for a loan. We did make a grant request as part of a statewide request from all Feeding America affiliates to the Woodruff Foundation in 2015. We were not awarded any of those funds. … Second Harvest of South Georgia built a new facility in Thomasville through a USDA Rural Development loan. That loan is current, and we are currently in the process of refinancing in order to get more favorable terms.

“Last summer, Second Harvest of South Georgia was the victim of wire fraud. We have been completely transparent about this; we notified the press and our donors about the breach at that time. Our Chief Financial Officer left the organization at that time but has in no way been implicated in the event. We are unable to comment further as this is an ongoing investigation.”

McCall said she believes Sims has been fed misleading information.

“Unfortunately, Sen. Sims has gotten very bad information,” she said. “If I had gotten the kind of misinformation she’s gotten, I’d be upset, too. We have attempted several times to engage Sen. Sims to discuss her concerns and set the record straight by providing her with facts. Each and every time she has refused to respond. We have always been responsive to the senator when she needed assistance for her constituents, but now she refuses to talk to us.

“Feeding America, the food bank network of which we are a member, looked into the Senator’s allegations but found no validity to any of the claims. We regret that we are now in this situation, but we still welcome the opportunity to meet with her to discuss how we can all work together to continue to help our neighbors in need here in the Albany area.”

Sims, though, said she has other plans.

“Those folks have treated me shabbily, and they’ve treated my constituents shabbily,” the senator said. “They think that I’m just going to go away, but that’s not me. I have a meeting set up with the governor, I think it’s Monday of next week. I will not just let this go; it means too much to our community.”

File PhotoFile Photo: Carlton Fletcher

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