Welcome*- Angel Food Ministries

A friend of mine has been ordering from Angel Food for a while now. Then I had another friend email me about it. So I decided to try it this month. It is amazing what you get for the price!! It says it will feed a family of 4 for one week. You can order as many as you want. I only ordered one 'box' to just try it. For last month, here's what I got for $30:

4 ribeye steaks
4 lb. bag of frozen chicken
4 pork chops
Bag of rice
3 lb bag sweet potatoes
Bag of chicken nuggets
Bag of fish sticks
Head of lettuce
Pork & beans
Bag of Fig Newtons
Milk
1 dozen eggs
Bag of frozen corn
Bag of frozen butter beans
Frozen entree of beef/macaroni (family size)
1 lb. hamburger

I know I'm leaving out some things .. but I'm just listing what I can remember because this is a great ministry and it's open to anyone. The food is donated by restaurants and grocery stores (Kroger here) and your $30 you pay goes to feed a family that cannot afford it.

They also offer 'convenience meals' that are total meals prepared that you just heat (10 for $28). I'm thinking of ordering those for my MIL.

You can order online (it goes to their head office in Atlanta). You can read the menu for the month of September. (There's also a fruit and veggie box, allergen-free food box, all meat box, etc.) They send you a confirmation thru email (or you can order from one of the pickup places in your area if you want to pay cash). On the date the pickup in your area has, you just take a box and your confirmation and they give you the food. It was raining when I picked mine up, and a teen came to my car with an umbrella and walked me to the pickup area and then carried it to my car.

I was thinking also of perhaps buying an extra box and giving it to a family in need this month.

Check out the website. The food is very good quality. You just put in your zip code and a pickup area near you will appear on a map. We have several in our area.

Just thought I'd pass this along!!!

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For an interesting article on Angel Food Ministries, check out this site:
The Simple Dollar » Some Thoughts on Angel Food Ministries

I found this part particularly interesting:

First of all, the charity is not listed with Charity Navigator, an impartial service that evaluates charities in terms of how they manage themselves internally and how much of their revenue actually goes towards charitable work. This is a basic step that many charities of any size take on - it’s the honest way to conduct a charity.

Second, the charity is being investigated by the FBI for reasons that are not being made clear by either the charity or the FBI. Here’s some details on the investigation.

Perhaps the biggest red flag, however, comes from MinistryWatch, a watchdog group for Christian-affiliated charities. It issued a “donor watch” for Angel Food Ministries, stating the following:

Angel Food Ministries is marketing to help individuals that are on the low economic side of the scale and in “need”; however, the leadership for the organization has higher salaries than the norm. In addition, the higher salaries consist of the leadership of individuals that are related. This is just for the known year of 2006, it is unknown of the more current years.

1. Wesley J. Wingo: $588,529
2. Linda Wingo: $544,043
3. Andrew Wingo: $529,014
4. Wesley Wingo: $454,673
5. L.M. Wingo: $384,694

Let alone the fact that these five people are related, the individual salaries are above and beyond what charities typically pay their employees, even large charities at the highest management levels.

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I decided to try Angel Food this coming month September. I am going to order just special box #3 the 11lbs of split chicken breasts.. I think I will get 2 of them. They are $21 each!

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Well said. (BTW, love Simple Dollar)

My church did this for awhile and stopped the contract - now I know why - besides giving people crappy food. Processed, hormone infested junk. People are gonna pay for eating this stuff later in life.

I did a program similiar to this when I lived in Va. I believe it was called SHARE. With SHARE, you will be eligible to purchase the food when you rack up volunteer points. Well, the food was simply awful...I did it one time, never again. The chicken was the cheaper meats, the veggies limp, crackers from some 3rd world country..ugh..

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My mom gets a box from them every month - It is a real God-Send for the elderly on a fixed income.

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Mary

My son also gets a box monthly. I am trying to find a place that is nearby but on the bus line since I don't drive.

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The church in the next block to me does this program and since it is open to all incomes, we decided to try in once a couple of years ago. It was ok, but not for us. It was $25 for the monthly allotment and I could get better food for cheaper using coupons. Their frozen chicken had additives/flavorings/preservatives in it and we don't like any additives/preservatives and flavorings in our fresh/frozen chicken we like to do that oursleves. Other frozen meats were heavily breaded, which we don't eat breaded stuff. The chicken nuggets were ok for DH and DD, but there was something in them I was allergic to, so I couldn't eat them, I can't remember what it was though. We don't eat fish sticks, I am allergic to them and no one else like them. The frozen veggies were ok. There was a box of generic hamburger helper type stuff which we don't eat. I just remember being disappointed with it.

Then my friend had bought some stuff through them and got a bunch of marinated chicken breasts that she didn't like and gave us 24 chicken breasts and I cooked them for DH on several different occasions (he will eat pretty much anything) and sent them in his lunches for work and he loved them. I couldn't eat them because of food allergies though, but they did smell good baking in the oven!

So I think they have some good things and bad things. I am really picky about what type meats we eat, plus I have alot of food allergies, so I do alot of label reading. So the program was not a good fit for us. I can see if you don't use coupons and aren't too picky or don't have picky eaters in the family it would work for you.

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SHARE is popular in Wisc and has really been wonderful. The food and produce have been very good quality and a good variety--yes, some 'processed' food, but also pork chops, chicken, and even steak options--you can even get Organic Produce!! I volunteer there regularly and they have made wonderful changes to the way pickup was handled and now are even delivering to shut ins or people that cannot get there (we are rural). They are a registered non profit organization.

The salaries of Angel Ministries officers are troubling to me.......

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I work at a senior housing building and they are coming in next week to give a presentation to our residents.

I'll be interested to see what they have to say.

We've been getting Angelfood boxes for awhile now. Until last week my hubby was unemployed for a solid year and I'm disabled but don't get any money from the government. While we didn't love everything in the boxes we were generally satisfied with the food considering our financial situation, particularly for the 6 months prior to when we were able to get food stamps. I expect to be off food stamps by next month and plan to continue getting some of the Angelfood boxes. A lot of the proteins in the box are purchased from Tyson, we also got lots of other name-brand products as well as the generic/unlabeled ones. One of our favorite items were the stuffed chicken breasts that were a Meat special one month - they were from Antioch Farms and were really great. We have since found them at a local store for more then we paid for them in our box, but sometimes they go on sale and we splurge.

As for the charity aspect - on some level, who cares. If you pay $X for the food and you think you got $X or more in value then its somewhat immaterial how much the head of the charity gets paid etc. I view it as more of a food-buying co-op then a charity at any rate, with the bonus of the church I get my boxes from is given $1 per box to fund their own food pantry and programs.

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Who cares? Well, I do for one. It's great that you are able to get help through a rough patch, but maybe there is a charity that does similar work without ripping off the folks who are contributing to the charity. The people who are contributing money might not be too thrilled with the prospect that a significant amount of that money is going to bloated salaries. That, coupled with the fact that the FBI is investigating them would give me pause whether I was on the giving or receiving end of the deal.

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Geez.

I work for a nonprofit with an annual budget of 300+ million, and our CEO makes around 200 grand. People complain about that, which I think is ridiculous. He's underpaid, if anything.

A nonprofit is not necessarily a charity. I think 200 thousand is more than enough for the CEO of a charity. In any case, there's also a big difference between 200 grand and half a million.

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You know what? If you don't like Angel Food Ministries, then don't buy their boxes of food they offer. No one is twisting your arm, you're not putting YOUR money into it.

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I agree.

And it seems incredibly judgmental to try to dictate what is 'appropriate' for someone to make, to the extent that you want the feds to go knocking at their door and shake 'em down.

Sounds very big brotherish to me.

Frankly, when I looked at the website for Angel Food Ministries, I was turned off by the info about the founders. It seemed more sales pitchy about their backgrounds than it did a sincere front-lines attempt to minister to people. More Jim and Tammy Fay(sp?) than Mother Teresa.

As a Christian, I found them to be a turn-off. I didn't like the fact that they seemed to be using their Christianity as something they could use to advertise what they do.

That said, I like the concept behind it, and I have to imagine that it is way more than a full-time job keeping up with so many volunteers, keeping up with the mail they get from people who were dissatisfied with their products, trying to get the word out to places they haven't found a foothold, etc. I read that they worked for the first... what was it? Five full years? ... at this with no compensation at all, and that is part of why they feel comfortable taking a larger-than expected salary now.

It's America. They're free to do what they want to do. If they are earning their money and it's going into their own personal bank accounts, they are paying taxes on it just like the rest of us.

ETA: I am not against Christians stating that their faith is what prompted them to start a ministry - it was just that in their case, it seemed more like "Christian!!!!" was part of the schtick, rather than the very basis for their existence. I can't know her heart, so I am not presuming to be judge and jury for her soul, but I know if I were the one in charge of giving the final okay for things on a website for the company I founded/worked for, I would say, "Tone down the praise about me, please. That's just... too much!"

"Linda Wingo is a remarkable woman. As a wife, mother, co-founder of Angel Food Ministries, and a senior pastor of Emmanuel Praise Church, she is a tower of strength to her family, a powerhouse of prayer to her congregation, and she teaches and preaches the Word of God with great clarity.

Raised in the small town of Lawrenceville, Georgia, by loving parents, Linda Wingo had a happy childhood. Her mother taught her at an early age the importance of helping others. It’s something Linda has done all her life. It is obvious to all who know her that Linda Wingo lives what she believes.

The profound truths Pastor Linda shares from the pulpit and the heartfelt compassion she extends to others in prayer have been forged during her years of experience with God. "

You know what? I provided some facts about this "charity" for whomever was interested. It appears some were. I also posted my opinions. If you don't like my posts, then don't read them. No one is twisting your arm.

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Well, if I'm going to give to a charity, then I'm going to use some judgement. If you want to hand over wads of cash to whomever asks for it, be my guest. Send some to me. What, you won't do that just because I asked? How judgemental of you!

Who said I wanted the feds to shake them down? The FBI is investigating them for reasons unknown to me. But before I sent them money, or got packages from them, I'd want to know. For all I know they're getting tainted food from China and passing it off to unsuspecting people for 30 bucks a pop.

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Here again is another use of the word "Christian" being blatently exploited for profit. What a shame. I'm a Buddhist, not a Christian, but I hate it when I see "Christians" claiming to be something they are completely not. Especially when it comes to organizations!!

Mom and I tried this A.F.M. food a couple of years ago. A local church was doing it. It wasn't that great. Nasty frozen tv dinners by off brand companies. Bagged prebreaded mystery chicken pieces. Yuck. I don't know..... it just didn't seem too good. The meat---how did they shrinkwrap it like that? Weird!!

We only tried it twice before we realized it was NOT a good deal after all. I could buy a ton of a lot more stuff for that money--- this was just a 'fun' thing to try, but now, I know I will never support that organization again!