By Angie Thompson, Senior Reporter
TIFTON — Tift County High School students and faculty and staff at the school collected 7,000 food items and donated them to Brother Charlie’s Mission Friday afternoon.
“It’s a good feeling to know we are giving back to the community,” said Hunter Daughtrey, a senior at TCHS. “The economy is really hard right now.”
Teacher Mike Beeman, who organizes the event and has for seven years, said that collections of non-perishable food items have been going for two weeks. Students made “designer boxes,” Beeman said, so teachers would take pride in the collections.
“The program just keeps growing,” Beeman said. “In this economy, it is really important to do things like this.”
Mark Stone, who directs Brother Charlie’s, told the students who delivered the food items that Ramen Noodles had been the dinner meal for the mission on several nights recently.
“We were out (of food),” Stone said. “I’m glad you are on the giving end and hope you never are on the receiving end. I honestly wish that.”
Stone said that while drug and alcohol abuse were the No. 1 causes of homelessness and are “a devil to play with,” not all of the men the mission helps fall into those stereotypes.
“We do have college-educated men who have lost their jobs,” Stone said. “We are seeing a huge increase in people coming in to the thrift store just for clothing because they have lost their jobs.”
Stone also said that the men the mission helps can’t just laze around and then move on. They are required, he said, to look for jobs and participate in programs that will, hopefully, give them skills for living more productively.
“The food is going to feed people just like you who are trying to do better.”
