Expanding Food Access Through Partnership: How a Cohort with the Atlanta Community Food Bank Helped Launch the Real Life Center's Summer Buddies Program

In 2025, the Real Life Center was honored to participate in the Atlanta Community Food Bank’s Transforming Access Together Accelerator, a leadership development cohort designed to help nonprofits expand their food access programs and build long-term operational capacity. The Accelerator brings together high-impact partner agencies—nine in the 2025 cohort—to strengthen food distribution systems and create innovative ways to serve neighbors facing food insecurity.

As part of this program, cohort partners receive specialized training, collaborative support, and grants ranging from $35,000 to $50,000 to fund infrastructure improvements, such as refrigeration, delivery vehicles, or expanded distribution capacity. The initiative aligns with ACFB’s broader Transforming Access Together model, which emphasizes removing barriers, increasing distribution opportunities, and ensuring equitable, consistent access to food for all neighbors (EIN Presswire).

For the Real Life Center—an organization whose core ministry for more than 25 years has included providing food to families in crisis—this cohort became the launching point for a significant new initiative: the Summer Buddies Program.

During the school year, the Real Life Center with Fayette County schools helps to ensure that children facing food insecurity have nutritious meals on weekends. But when summer break arrives, thousands of children across Georgia lose access to school-provided meals—often their most reliable source of food.

As part of the Accelerator’s research and development process, our Client Care & Special Programs Director, Jennifer Nolder, explored ways the Real Life Center could expand food distribution specifically to support children during the summer months.

During that process, Jennifer identified the Fayette County Summer Lunch Program, which provides weekday lunches during the summer months to students facing food insecurity, as indicated by their school counselors. This program was already doing vital work—and it was the perfect foundation for a new collaborative approach.

Through our involvement in the ACFB cohort, and after extensive research, planning, and prayer, the Real Life Center launched the Summer Buddies Program in May 2025. According to the program outline, the inaugural year ran May 26 through August 1, 2025, covering the full span of Fayette County Schools’ summer break.

While the Fayette County Summer Lunch Program provided weekday lunches, the Real Life Center filled critical gaps by supplying families with:

• Breakfast foods
• Dinner items
• Weekend meal supplies

These supplemental food bags helped ensure that children had consistent access to nutritious meals beyond the weekday lunch provided by the Fayette County Summer Lunch Program.

This collaboration allowed us not only to support children but also to connect with families who may not have known about our other services, including financial assistance, life skills programs, and our year-round participation in Backpack Buddies. The program was also designed to reach families who previously struggled to access resources due to transportation barriers, since our volunteers delivered meals directly to designated stops across the county.

As the Summer Buddies Program began to take shape, it became clear that a dedicated vehicle would be essential for delivering meals throughout the county. Through the Accelerator, the Atlanta Community Food Bank awarded grant funding, and together with another generous donor, provided the resources the Real Life Center needed to purchase a delivery van—an investment noted in the project budget.

This van now serves not only Summer Buddies but also other Real Life Center programs that expand food distribution throughout Fayette and Coweta counties.

The Summer Buddies Program is a testament to what can happen when community organizations work together with a shared purpose. Our partnership with the Atlanta Community Food Bank through the Transforming Access Together Accelerator strengthened our ability to dream, innovate, and expand. Our partnership with the Fayette County Summer Lunch Program ensured that children received the meals they needed throughout their summer break—weekdays and weekends, and mornings and evenings.

And at the heart of it all is our mission:
Showing our neighbors the love of Christ by providing necessities for stable living.

The Real Life Center is excited to see how the Summer Buddies Program grows in 2026 and beyond. With each new summer, we have the opportunity to reach more families, build stronger relationships, and ensure that no child in our community goes hungry while school is out.

We are deeply grateful for the partners who have joined with us—ACFB, local donors, volunteers, school counselors, and the incredible Fayette County Summer Lunch team. Together, we are expanding food access and bringing hope to families right here at home.

EIN Presswire. (2025, February 7). Atlanta Community Food Bank launches new
Transforming Access Together cohort. EIN Presswire. https://www.einpresswire.com/article/784056059/atlanta-community-food-bank-launches-new-transforming-access-together-cohort

Atlanta Community Food Bank. (n.d.). Partner Resources: Transforming Access Together. https://www.acfb.org/partner-resources/partner-resources-tat/