Food Bank 2

Final Report
By: Christine Suh, Gabby Scott, Livy Baxley, and Martha Sikora
MATH 4950
PIC Math Presentation on the
Food Bank of Northeast Georgia
Our work with the Food Bank of
Northeast Georgia is in
collaboration with the PIC Math
Program (Preparation for
Industrial Careers in
Mathematical Sciences).

“PIC Math prepares

mathematical sciences students
for industrial careers by
engaging them in research
problems that come directly
from industry.”
 Table of Contents

01 02 03
Introduction Analysis of Results Conclusion
Introduce our Industry Discuss our approach to Conclude our analysis and
Partner and statement of the problems, graphs, offer suggestions for future
the problem and data work
 01
Introduction
Introduce our Industry Partner and statement of
the problem
Food Bank of Northeast Georgia
Industry Partner

● Non-profit organization

● Collects surplus and donated food and

distributes food to smaller food pantries

● Serves communities across 14 counties

● Provides consistent access to nourishing

food and relevant education
Why does this matter?

● The ultimate goal of this project is to give back to the

community we live in

● The Food Bank of Northeast GA wants to improve upon their

services in the counties they reach

● Understanding the gaps in Black, Indigenous, and People of

Color (BIPOC) with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance
Program (SNAP) enrollment and poverty rates are important in
the betterment of this organization
 74,840
Number of Food Insecure Persons in our Serve Area
What we focused on?
● Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
○ A government-funded nutrition assistance program for
individuals in need
○ Food Stamps

● Poverty Levels

● Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC)

● Population Size: Rural or Urban

● Focused in on Clarke County

02
Analysis of
Results
How we approached our
problems, graphs, and
data
Our Approach
● Collected data from US Census, County Office, the Athens Wellbeing
Project, Georgia Government

● Used Excel to compile and clean data and created ratios that represent
the questions we were answering

● Created graphs in R and Python to represent these ratios and also created
a heat map along with other maps to visualize our findings

● Drew conclusions from the trends represented in the graphs to offer

insight to help the Food Bank
Our Discoveries
● We discovered several correlations with data

○ Positive correlation in BIPOC Status and Poverty as well as BIPOC

Status and SNAP Enrollment

● Clarke County appeared to be a strong outlier in all of our data

○ Due to this, we zoomed in our focus on Clarke County

○ We looked into each of the school district zones to compare the

locations of food pantries with the locations of schools

○ We found that certain areas had fewer food pantries compared to

the number of students enrolled in SNAP
Relationship between Poverty and BIPOC Status
Analysis

● This graph shows the relationship between the percent of people in

poverty compared to their BIPOC Status

● We found upward sloping trends for both categories but no strong

correlation

● Clarke County causes the Urban slope to be inflated more than the Rural
Counties

● It is also important to note that urban counties tend to have a greater

percentage of BIPOC
Relationship between BIPOC Status and SNAP Enrollment
Analysis
● The relationship between BIPOC Status and SNAP enrollment also
revealed positive slopes for both rural and urban counties but no
strong correlation

● It is important to note that the urban counties tended to have greater

percentages of BIPOC, with Clarke County having the highest %

● Franklin and Stephens Counties both have higher percentages of

Households with SNAP compared to the other rural counties

● Oconee County has the lowest percentage of Households with SNAP,

but they also have a lower percentage of BIPOC
Comparing % Households below Poverty Line and %
Households with SNAP
Analysis
● The heat map offers insight to which counties have a greater percentage of
households enrolled in SNAP versus their poverty rates

● If the county is a darker color with a ratio greater than 1, it is doing well with
SNAP enrollment. This means the percent of households enrolled in SNAP
exceeds the percent of households in poverty

● If the ratio is below 1 and a lighter color, the percent of households in poverty
exceeds the percent of households enrolled in SNAP

● Therefore, Barrow and Stephens Counties are in a good place while Clarke,
Oconee, and Towns need to increase the number of households enrolled

● The ratio offers insight into the outlier of Clarke County

 Relationship between BIPOC Status and Ratio
(% Households with SNAP/% Households in Poverty)
Relationship between BIPOC and Ratio Explained
● For the rural counties, there seems to be a positive correlation between
BIPOC and the ratio (% Households with SNAP/% Households in Poverty)

● For the urban counties, there seems to be a negative correlation. However,

if the outlier (Clarke County) were omitted, it would have a positive
correlation

● Counties above the dotted line are considered to be in good standing

while those below are not as well off

● Outliers for both rural counties created a slightly elevated slope while
outliers for urban counties created a slightly de-elevated slopes
Understanding Clarke County as an Outlier
● Clarke County has the highest % person in poverty, % BIPOC status, and the
lowest ratio (% Households enrolled in SNAP/% Households below Poverty
Line)

● We want to know what areas within the Clarke County are most in need

● We found that Clarke County has a greater amount of food pantries compared
to the other counties

● However, many locations of food pantries are somewhat clustered in one area

● Thus, we dived into SNAP data within schools to better understand the
disparities in locations
About Athens Wellbeing Project (AWP)

● Collaborated and partners with many

community organizations including
the University of Georgia

● Data is collected from AWP surveys

that focus on health, lifelong learning,
housing, community safety, and civic
vitality at neighborhood levels in
Clarke County

● AWP 1.0 in 2016, AWP 2.0 in 2018,

AWP 3.0 (in progress)
Athens Welling Project 2.0 Data

● Stratum (Neighborhood) are

based on 16 elementary schools in
Clarke County School Districts

● 285 residents from each stratum

were randomly selected to
participate in the AWP survey

● Overall response rate of 21.5% at

the county level
Findings from AWP 2.0
 School Level Data
Direct certification is metric that measures the poverty levels of students in Georgia

● Students who receive SNAP (food stamp benefits)

● Students who receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits
● Students who identify as homeless, unaccompanied youth, foster or migrant

Direct Certification Percent = number of directly certified students/total school enrollment

Findings with Direct Certification Percent

Direct Certification Percent = number of directly certified students/total school enrollment

Analysis
● Schools within the blue zone districts are located farther away from the
majority of the food pantries with higher direct certification percent

● Schools within the green zone districts except for Alp Road Elementary have
lower direct certification percent below 42%, and are closer to the cluster of
food pantries within Clarke County.

● The orange schools are pretty spread out in terms of direct certification but
are all clustered around food pantries

● The red schools have lower direct certification percentages but are spread
out on the west-side of Athens with a couple pantries
 03
Conclusion
Conclusion of analysis
and offer suggestions
for future work
Final Results
● Our overarching problem was to understand relationships between SNAP
Enrollment and Poverty, BIPOC Status, and the SNAP Gap

● We conclude that BIPOC percent and people in poverty and BIPOC percent
and SNAP enrollment do not have strong positive correlations

● After understanding these for each county, we zoomed in on Clarke County to

determine why it stood out in our data

● Finally, we still believe there is more work to be done in Clarke County in terms
of the locations of the food pantries, but we conclude that locations should
either shift towards schools with high SNAP enrollment or more food pantries
need to develop in those areas
Suggestions for Future Work
● After working with the Food Bank for the semester, we discovered many things
but weren’t able to find all the answers

● One suggestion is to contact Stephens County and see if they can provide any
data as we had trouble finding it when researching

● Our suggestions going forward are to work on interpreting the Athens

Wellbeing Project’s 3.0 Data

● It will offer further insight into Clarke County

Acknowledgements
“PIC Math is a program of the Mathematical Association of
America (MAA) and the Society for Industrial and Applied
Mathematics (SIAM). Support is provided by the National Science
Foundation (NSF grant DMS-1722275).”

Thank you to Dr. Jennifer Royal for her

guidance and advisement in this course. We
are grateful for her commitment to our team
and every team.
Our team

● Christine Suh: Third-Year Mathematics Major, General

Business Minor

● Gabby Scott: Fourth-Year Economics and Statistics Major

● Livy Baxley: Second-Year Mathematics Major, Social Work

Minor

● Martha Sikora: Fourth-Year Mathematics Major

Resources
Athens Social Mapping Atlas. (2014-2018). Athens Wellbeing Project.
https://www.athenswellbeingproject.org/athens-social-mapping-atlas

Food Insecurity in Georgia. (2021). Feeding America.

https://map.feedingamerica.org/county/2019/overall/georgia

Food Stamps by Tract in Clarke County, GA. (2018, August 16). The Demographic
Statistical Atlas.
https://statisticalatlas.com/tract/Georgia/Clarke-County/140500/Food-Stamps

Food Stamp Offices in Georgia. (2022). County Office.

https://www.countyoffice.org/ga-food-stamp-office/
Resources
Quick Facts United States. (2021). United States Census Bureau.
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045221

School Attendance Zones. (2022). Clarke County School District.

https://www.clarke.k12.ga.us/Page/2095

SNAP Matters in Every Community–Metros, Small Towns, and Rural Communities.

(2020). Food Research and Action Center.
https://frac.org/maps/snap-county-map/snap-counties.html

SNAP participation and food-at-home expenditures through the Great Recession:

United States and the New York Area. (January 2022). Monthly Labor Review.
https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2022/article/snap-participation-and-food-at-ho
me-expenditures-through-the-great-recession-united-states-and-the-new-yor
k-area.htm
Thanks!
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