Midtown Patch Gives 5 to Open Hand

Thursday was a beautiful day, a great day to give “Give 5.”

Give 5 is Patch’s ongoing volunteering initiative and a part of Patch's mission to give back to communities in a variety of ways, one of which of course is informing it with strong reporting through one of our more than 850 sites.

You can’t truly serve a community unless you provide the help it needs most, which is why giving back is so important to us. We do it as part of our coverage — in a dedicated space that lets local charities and volunteers find each other — and with “Give 5,” through which we donate free advertising space to charitable organizations and contribute our own time as volunteers.

Many Midtown residents give back year round. How do you give back to the Midtown community?

Thursday I decided to pay a long overdue “catching up” visit at the Atlanta nonprofit, Open Hand. Located at 176 Ottley Drive on the cusp of Midtown and Buckhead, Open Hand in recent months celebrated its 20 millionth Atlanta area meal delivery. I delivered weekly meals for Open Hand from 2006-2010 before moving to the Smyrna-Vinings area for Patch.

On my list to get back involved at Open Hand for the last three months since I returned to the Midtown area, it was great to see familiar faces when I walked through the door Thursday. And after delivery meals throughout Midtown and the Viginia-Highland area, I’m excited to be back on board on a regular basis. Thanks Open Hand!

Did you know that Open Hand is the largest provider of home-delivered, medically appropriate meals and nutrition education in the U.S., delivering more than 5,500 meals daily to those challenged by or looking to prevent chronic disease or disability?

Last December, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed presented a Phoenix Award, the city’s highest honor, to the volunteers at Open Hand’s kitchen and thanked them for their years of dedication and service to the community.

In doing such, the mayor said, “Metropolitan Atlanta now has 20 million reasons to thank Open Hand and its thousands of volunteers for their many contributions to our city. For more than 23 years, Open Hand has provided warm, nutritious meals residents in need of care and assistance. Open Hand and its volunteers reflect the best of Atlanta. I deeply appreciate the vital work they do in the community every day.”

Recently, Open Hand announced it will dig into a 17,000-square-foot facility expansion. The expansion was essential and will nearly triple the size of Open Hand’s current facility; addressing the organization’s critical need for a larger, more efficient facility to increase meal production.

The expansion, which comes on the heels of the nonprofit’s successful Capital Expansion Campaign that raised $4.2 million as a result of donations from philanthropic foundations, corporate partners and individual donors, will involve the merging of an adjacent facility at 181 Armour Drive with the current facility on Ottley Dr. to create one unified and completely renovated campus.

“Over the past several years, Open Hand has experienced unprecedented growth and the expansion of our facility is a milestone in our ongoing effort to meet the growing needs of this community,” explained Stephen Woods, executive director of Open Hand, in a statement. “We are proud to host this ceremony to honor the many partners and volunteers who got us here.”

New features of the facility will include a reconfigured kitchen, a new meal-packaging and distribution area, a volunteer engagement center, outdoor green space and multi-purpose areas providing new and larger space for education and training.

In addition to allowing Open Hand to serve more clients with medically appropriate meals, the facility will be instrumental in expanding Good Measure Meals™ – Open Hand’s social enterprise venture, which provides a combination of education, support and nutrition to promote healthier lifestyles for thousands of people in Metro Atlanta.

Construction on the new facility will be handled by GlenCastle Constructors, Inc., a consortium of builders that provides services for select nonprofits to help them realize significant savings. Atlanta-based TaC Studios is providing architectural design for the project. Southface Energy Institute Atlanta also provided guidance to ensure the expansion follows environmentally friendly practices.

For additional information on the new facility plans or to learn more about Open Hand, see here.