When Greg Hodges, market president at Hancock Whitney, called Ann McCullen to tell her his organization would like to help Edwards Street Fellowship Center with the increase in clients it’s seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, McCullen was thinking a gift along the lines of $500.
But the financial institution’s gift ended up being much more than that – in fact, about 40 times more. Hodges and other representatives from Hancock Whitney presented McCullen a check for $20,000 at during a ceremony Thursday at the center, which will use the funds to supplement its food pantry that serves the greater Hattiesburg area.
“I was stunned – absolutely stunned,” said McCullen, who serves as executive director of the center. “This is huge for the folks who rely on our food pantry.
“Since March 1, we have signed up more than 600 new families, which is amazing. In an average month, we are nowhere near that – we may have 20 or 25 new families in a month.”
The investment will provide an estimated 1,300 grocery bags of food, or 10,400 meals.
“Kind of the slogan that we’ve adopted through all of this is ‘Spread Hope,’ and we feel like this huge gift does that,” McCullen said. “It doesn’t just touch Edwards Street – it touches everyone that depends on us, and it touches their families, so hope is being spread throughout the community.
“I think that as we look at this whole pandemic – and what are we going to take away from it – I hope that as a society, when we think back on it, we’re going to think about the hope that we felt and the hope that was given by our fellow Mississippians. And that’s what Hancock Whitney has done.”
Thursday’s donation follows Hancock Whitney’s commitment to donate $2.5 million throughout the Gulf South during the pandemic. Those funds are being used to stock local food pantries, provide medical supplies to protect residents and first responders, and fund housing relief and legal services for individuals fighting illegal evictions.
“We’re just trying to do our part, and right now we’re all trying to figure out what to do,” Hodges said. “Some of us have to stay home and some of us are able to get out and do some volunteering, but there’s a lot of needs.
“So as a bank, we saw that one of those biggest needs was for food, so one thing we’ve been doing across our entire footprint of the Gulf South is that there’s enough money for food banks.”
In addition to the donated funds, several Hancock Whitney employees set up tents in the backyard of Edwards Street to bag up rice and beans for the pantry. McCullen said that effort was particularly helpful, as Edwards Street had to cut back on volunteers because of social distancing guidelines.
“It was tough, because these families are home and they’re anxious to get out, and a lot of the kids still had community service hours due for their school organizations,” she said. “But we couldn’t, because we couldn’t have that many more people walking into our workspace.
“So this is a gift … and a win-win all around. They’re spending a few hours with us, and they’re bagging hundreds of hundreds of pounds – they’ll top a thousand pounds, because they’re very productive. So that’s a gift, because without volunteers, our staff is struggling to keep up on that front.”
Hodges said it is the responsibility of institutions like Hancock Whitney to step up, be leaders in the community, and provide needed supplies in times of crisis.
“I know I’ve talked to a lot of other bankers, and they’re doing the same things in some different areas,” he said. “As far as community leaders go, we need to step up – the companies that have the resources should step up right now.
“It’s going to take all of us – it takes a village – so I really think that this is our part. But I know there’s many other companies that are going to do their part as well.”
Edwards Street Fellowship Center was started in 1979 by Reverend Warren Pittman, superintendent of the Hattiesburg District of the Methodist Church, as a center for after-school and weekend programs for youth in the community. The organization usually serves about 1,500 households per month in seven counties, in addition to 400 patients at its Fellowship Health Clinic and several more with its Lincoln Road thrift store.
“We’ve had an increase of 20 percent of families that are coming through our doors needing assistance (since the COVID-19 pandemic started),” McCullen said. “What we are also seeing is that people that can do without, are. A lot of people got their stimulus checks, and that has helped a lot of our families who have depended on us in the past.
“And our folks that come to see us, the majority of them would be in that immuno-suppressed category – we see a lot of people with diabetes and COPD and things like that – so it’s super hard for them to get out. A lot of them are saying they’ll make do and figure it out, because they’re scared to leave home.”
