East Lake Community Development’s Good Neighbor Food Program

The goals for this mission are to improve lives by providing food and an opportunity for service of others. The food is to nourish the body and the service of others is for the soul by being a Good Neighbor.

In 2018, we were rehabilitating a senior apartment community and found that the residents’ refrigerators were essentially empty because our seniors had to make the difficult decision to choose between prescription drugs and food. This reality that our senior residents were making choices to be without something essential opened our eyes to an opportunity to serve others, while addressing a community need.

In 2018 we launched the Good Neighbor program at affordable apartment communities and we have delivered food every month since. We source the food through the local Food Bank and we could not pursue our goals and be successful without their support. Every month we drive a truck with pallets of food and deliver it to affordable communities for distribution by residents to residents within the apartment community. In communities outside of Birmingham we rely on the local Food Bank to deliver the food. These food deliveries typically provide forty-five pounds to a senior or a family each month.

Total food deliveries have exceeded 1.5 million pounds.

As we pursued actions to alleviate the food uncertainty we also learned that loneliness and isolation is also pervasive in our senior communities. We believe that if you have eight friends in your community then you have a home. If you have less then you just have a place to sleep, so we added “building community” to our mission.

The residents of the communities are happy and excited to donate the majority of food day to their neighbors, sorting, bagging and delivering food. This service to others creates joy and fulfillment to all of our resident volunteers and many of them have been involved since 2018. This spirit of community is the genesis of the Good Neighbor program. Every month this sprit of being a Good Neighbor permeates the community and this creates the feeling of being at home and connecting with others. Neighbors are able to respond when someone is ill or unable to obtain their food, offering support when needed. Some communities have created holiday gatherings, walking groups and other community activities that further enrich resident’s lives.

The Good Neighbor program is currently active in Birmingham, Mobile, Montgomery and Selma. In time, we expect to expand outside of Alabama. The Good Neighbor program can be activated wherever there is a food bank and an apartment community that wants to participate.
If you have an interest in supporting and being a part of this Good Neighbor effort of providing food to affordable apartment communities please make a tax-deductible contribution by sending a check to East Lake Community Development, Inc. 100% of your contribution will used purchasing food. East Lake Community Development, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) organization and our employer identification number is 63-0849453.

For more information please contact Eric Lipp at:

EricLipp@EastLakeCD.com or 205-639-5090 or Steven Lipp at Steven.Lipp@EastLakeCD.com or 205-639-5083.