Peanut Butter and Jesus distributes bagged lunches to area children

Published 4:00 pm Friday, July 6, 2018

TIFTON — It’s around 10 a.m. on a blazing hot Saturday and a bright green van blaring cheerful music swings around a street corner, kids rushing out of their homes excitedly, gathering at the end of driveways in anticipation.

The van slowly makes its way down the street, the passengers asking “how many?” to the gathered groups, and after the van leaves, the kids make their way back inside, already diving in to what they were given.

While this is a common summer scene, the bright green van is not an ice cream truck, and the kids are not excited about frozen treats.

The van is one of the Peanut Butter and Jesus vans, and its passengers are giving out lunches to Tift area children who might otherwise not eat that day.

Tony McBrayer, who is a member of Pineview Holiness Baptist Church, is the spokesperson for the ministry, which was on its 41st week on Saturday, June 30.

According to McBrayer, the pastor of the church wanted to begin an outreach ministry and saw the bright green vans at a church in Lakeland, which donated the vans to the church. The outreach began in Tifton in September 2017.

“We had 141 bags the first week,” McBrayer said. “We peaked at 1,092 bags a couple of weeks ago. We’ve backed back down a little bit because during the summer the kids aren’t coming out as much. We’re doing 920 this morning.”

The volunteers meet at the church at around 8 a.m., make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and pack them in paper bags with a drink, a bag of chips, a snack and a small tract.

The volunteers then load trays full of bags into the backs of the two vans for delivery.

One van takes the country route, starting out on Ferry Lake Road, and the other takes the city route, starting out behind Eighth Street Middle School. Both vans drive slowly through the neighborhoods, back doors open, with volunteers riding on the back or walking behind to make sure they don’t miss anyone or leave anyone out.

The volunteers on the city route drove around approximately six neighborhoods and housing complexes. Dustin Poole and Stephen Reyes spent most of the time walking behind the van, giving out bagged lunches. McBrayer drove the van, which did not have air conditioning, while Brenley Carver and Silas Carver alternated between giving out bags and riding in the escort vehicle, which follows each van for safety.

McBrayer said that their primary focus with the ministry is to make sure that kids who are at risk of going hungry on the weekends get something to eat, as well as giving them an inspirational message to encourage them and teach them about Jesus.

“The schools and the YMCA has the feeding program,” he said. “We worked closely with Vanessa Hughes and Darian Peavy especially at the beginning, to make sure we were going to the right areas where the needs are. We’re copycatting the areas they go to, only we go on the weekends and we go directly to their home.”

The program has been so successful that the group is trying to add a third van, which McBrayer said would help shorten distribution times for the bagged lunches and increase how many bags they can carry.

“Right now it’s taking us three and a half, four hours to make the deliveries,” McBrayer said. “That’s tough on our volunteer base, when you start at eight o’clock in the morning and don’t finish until two in the afternoon. If we can get another van we should be able to get through around 12 or 12:30 p.m. and people will be more likely to volunteer if they know they still have most of their Saturday to do what they’d like.

The program relies strictly on volunteers and donations.

The volunteers on this Saturday were from Fitzgerald, Douglas, Nashville, Alapaha and Tifton. They have had volunteers come from neighboring counties, as well as Indiana, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Louisiana to participate, and McBrayer said that churches in Texas, Florida and Oklahoma have come to see how the program works with an eye towards starting up something similar in their areas.

Food donations come in from area businesses and local families.

“As of this morning we’ve done just shy of 29,000 sandwiches in 41 weeks and we’ve not had to buy the first jar of peanut butter yet,” McBrayer said. “We thank the Lord for that. A lot of jelly has been donated. Just recently the Neighborhood Walmart did a jelly and juice drive, where they asked the customers to buy a jar of jelly or a six pack of juice. They’ve given us about 70 cases of jelly and 30 or 40 cases of juice. Georgia Peanut Commission is currently doing an apple jelly drive for us. Kiwanis Club and Tifton Junior Women’s Club have donated product, The Exchange Club has supported us. Donations is the name of the game, and once people understand what we’re doing they’re really supportive of the ministry.”

McBrayer said he has been the most surprised at the acceptance of and support for the program within the community. He said that he has had elderly people coming up to express their appreciation, and recently they’ve had more young men come up to them and express the same thing.

“They were a little wary of us at first,” McBrayer said. “I mean, you come in with a lime green van, back doors open, driving slow through the neighborhood, they’re a little leery. But once they understood what we’re doing we’ve had a lot of those come up to us and thank us. So the acceptance in the neighborhoods has been really nice.”