According to the newspaper, Angel Food Ministries posted a message
last week on its website, angelfoodministries.com, that read: "At this
time we regret to inform you that we have not found a solution that will
allow Angel Food Ministries to continue to distribute food on a monthly
basis and have decided to cease operations."
The website is no longer working.
The Lebanon Gospel Center was affiliated with Angel Food Ministries
for about three years, Sherman said. He is not sure how many
distributions the center held in that time, but the individual monthly
high was about 700 people.
The last distribution in Lebanon was held in March, Sherman said.
"We realized they were having problems, so we wanted to get out," he
said.
In addition to the Lebanon Gospel Center, Millcreek Lutheran Church
in Millcreek Township also hosted a distribution site. Eileen Sites,
host site director at Millcreek, said she, too, was disappointed the
program was shut down.
"It's just such a shame because it was a great program," she said. "A
lot of people counted on it."
Sites said the church was still actively taking orders for a
September distribution and in the middle of the month read a notice on
the organization's website that there would not be a distribution in
September and that the nonprofit was reorganizing and restructuring.
"It sounded suspicious," she said.
Soon afterward, Sites said, she received an email from the woman who
organized distributions for Pennsylvania.
"It said that she lost her job, that a lot of people lost their jobs,
and that they were not going to be restructuring or reorganizing, and
that they were not going to be doing anything," she said.
Millcreek Lutheran Church was affiliated with Angel Food since 2009,
Sites said. At its peak, the church served about 230 clients, but that
number dwindled to fewer than 100 this summer.
Angel Food Ministries was started in 1994 on the back porch of the
Revs. Joe and Linda Wingo in Monroe, Ga. The organization bought food in
bulk quantity and distributed it via a network of churches and
volunteers, so it was able to sell it the food at a reduced price and
still make enough of a profit to keep the program running.
At one time, it had about 4,500 distribution sites in 35 states and
provided food to more than 500,000 families each month.
It now appears Angel Food Ministries was making more of a profit than
it let on.
According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the nonprofit's most
recent tax filing with the Internal Revenue Service indicated Angel Food
paid a total of $1.06 million in 2009 to three family members who run
the organization: Joe Wingo received $697,037; his son, Jonathan Wesley
Wingo, listed as director of pastoral ministries and chief information
officer, received $265,195; and Linda Wingo, listed as a director and
corporate secretary, was paid $100,480.
Angel Food also has faced court battles, the paper reported. In 2009,
two board members, Craig Atnip and David A. Prather, filed a suit
alleging the Wingos enriched themselves through the nonprofit doing such
things as using the company credit cards on personal items. The suit
alleged that Andy Wingo, one of Joe and Linda Wingo's sons, took
kickbacks from vendors.
As part of a settlement, Angel Food said it would complete a forensic
audit; that company credit cards used by the Wingos must be canceled;
and Andy Wingo is barred from ever doing business with the nonprofit
again, according to the newspaper.
Also in 2009, the FBI raided Angel Food's Georgia headquarters, and
the organization is still under investigation by the federal agency.
In addition to helping needy people, Sherman and Sites both said, the
distributions became a social event for the volunteers.
"It was a great time for people in the community to get together,"
Sherman recalled. "They had a great time at the distribution, and it was
something they looked forward to."
"All the volunteers from the different churches were great," Sites
agreed. "It turned out that we were not only helping families, but it
turned out to be a social kind of a get-together for all of the
volunteers. We got together every month and got to talk."
Sherman and Sites both said their churches are exploring other
avenues to help needy families.
