Surprisingly enough, Mr. White wasn’t talking about Charlotte when he wrote this verse. He wrote this long before Charlotte was a gleam in his eye. He is talking about something we are finding to be true in our work at the Atlanta Community Food Bank. If we can help kids build a strong and silken web of relationships between their communities and new experiences and people, they will begin to discern a valuable truth: they can be attached. They may be able, and may choose, to go back and forth. They may begin to see the connections that exist among all of us.

The work of the Atlanta Community Food Bank is to engage, educate and empower our community to fight hunger. There are many communities to engage and many forms that engagement may take. We are seeking ways of building webs of relationship between communities. This is happening with the Girl Scouts and their new patch program, Hunger 101. It is happening with graduate students in nutrition who are doing a two-week rotation at the food bank. It is also happening at individual schools who see opportunities to volunteer in an on-going way with agencies that receive food through the food bank.

The Girl Scout Council of Northwest Georgia and the Atlanta Community Food Bank are collaborating in the program called Hunger 101. Girls can work on activities involving hunger issues, nutrition or gardening. They may begin as Daisy Scouts and continue through their Senior Gold Award. Each girl must do a service activity to get the patch. Troops are beginning this patch in lots of ways, having yard sales and donating the money, visiting and helping at food pantries, checking out pricing at grocery stores. Most importantly, they are having an on-going conversation about the issues of hunger and food. It is the on-going conversation and on-going activity that spins the web and creates the relationship. One leader said, “It was a hard concept for 5-year olds to understand that not everyone could go to a refrigerator and get something to eat.” The 5-year olds are beginning the conversation and who knows where they will end up.

Spinning the web is also happening with graduate students in nutrition and dietetics at Emory University, Georgia State University and Southern Regional Hospital System. They spend a 2-week rotation at the Atlanta Community Food Bank. During that time they tour an inner-city neighborhood and visit some of the Food Bank’s member agencies; do a needs assessment with one agency; volunteer with another agency; go out with the drivers of our prepared food program, Atlanta’s Table; “shop” in our warehouse; prepare recipes from food they chose from the warehouse and share that food, the recipes and nutrition information with shoppers from community-based, service and faith based organizations.

Some of the nutrition students have begun volunteering on their own at the agencies they visited - teaching cooking classes, working with cooks, talking about healthy diets for diabetics. One student said, “I was really discouraged about people before I came here. I’ve been with people who are helping for 2 weeks and it’s changed me.” Another student said after walking into one agency, “This is the work I’m supposed to do. Now I know.” Like the Girl Scouts, these interns have also been introduced into a new conversation, have begun spinning webs. Who knows where it could lead? Relationship building is also happening with individual schools. Pace Academy, a private school in Atlanta, has an on-going connection with the Atlanta Community Food Bank. Students and faculty help to sort food at our Product Rescue Center. One time they made sandwiches for an agency and decided they needed to get to know the people who were receiving the sandwiches. Now on weekends they are volunteering regularly at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in downtown Atlanta. They are deepening their own conversation about poverty and homelessness. They are also building relationships with people in need. Who knows where this could lead?

Many times the Food Bank staff must take a wide leap of faith regarding our efforts at community building. We don’t know if the web is being spun. We offer educational and volunteer opportunities. A relationship may be developed later or in a different way than anyone imagined. The web may be an intellectual web, a prayer web, and an action web.

We’re excited about the relationships and spinning we see. We are hopeful about the relationships and spinning yet to come. We are sure that they will form a web that can link remarkably diverse people and activities. Who knows where all this could lead?

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