During a ceremony Thursday morning where Feed the Boro received a large donation from the J.A. Grifols Foundation, Don Poe, the recently retired chair of the food security organization, laid out the monthly expenses of the non-profit.

“Feed the Boro is strictly a volunteer organization,” Poe said. “There's nobody in the organization that receives any salary whatsoever. For our monthly food drops, our number one cost is obviously the food. Paying for police to direct traffic is number two. What's number three? Donuts! It takes a ton of donuts because we have hundreds of volunteers each month and we like to treat them good.”

In fact, the $25,000 gift from the Grifols Foundation will pay for about 10 months of food – approximately $2,500 per month – for the Feed the Boro food drops.

A global company, Grifols operates two plasma donation centers in Statesboro – Grifols Biomat USA in the College Plaza Center on Fair Road and Grifols Freedom on Northside Drive, across from Walgreens.

Several months ago, Poe said he was told about a grant opportunity with the Grifols Foundation, so his team sent in an application.

“We were surprised we were picked and I am so grateful,” he said. “It is a blessing and I can’t thank Grifols enough. It will make a big difference in a lot of lives.”

The J.A. Grifols Foundation has a “mission of contributing to the health and well-being of plasma donors and the communities where they live,” said Tom Berry, a representative for the Foundation who was at Thursday’s ceremony held in front of the Biomat USA office.

“We do community enhancement grants across the country,” he said. “We have 281 donor centers and all of the centers are welcome to work with a partner like Feed the Boro. Our mission is to impact communities where our donors live. This is the first donation in Statesboro. Feed the Boro is a great organization and Statesboro is a great community.”

Founded in the late 1990s, Feed the Boro began with a mission to ensure no one in the community went hungry on Thanksgiving Day. What started as a grassroots effort to prepare and deliver fewer than 200 meals has grown into one of Bulloch County’s most consistent sources of food relief, providing groceries to approximately 1,000 families each month.

In fact, Feed the Boro distributed its four-millionth meal at its July drop.

In accepting the donation Thursday, Poe related the impact each monthly drop has on the Statesboro and area communities.

“I get there at 2:30 in the morning on drop days,” Poe said. “In six years of doing this, there's only been one time that I showed up that I was the only person in that parking lot. Usually when I show up, there's 100 to 150 cars waiting in line to receive this food.

“Now, you have to think about this: these people have sat in their cars all night long. You know what Georgia summers feel like? They can't get out of the line, they lose their spot. There are no restrooms. Heat in the summertime, mosquitoes, wintertime, cold. By 8 a.m. there'll be at least 800 cars in that line. These are people who need food, period, end of the conversation.”

Also on hand Thursday was the center manager for Biomat USA, Sherry Arunkumar. She said the two centers combined have about 100 employees.

“We are very grateful to our community as a whole, and very proud to be a part of Statesboro and being able to give back into our community,” she said. “We have a great partner in Feed the Boro.”

For anyone interested in volunteering, donating, or becoming a sponsor for Feed the Boro, more information is available at feedtheboro.com/#contact