Rising Stars: Meet Erin Barger of Athens and Northeast Georgia

Today we’d like to introduce you to Erin Barger.

Hi Erin, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My unique gift is to invest compassion and create belonging, while embracing accountability and transparency, It has been a sacred honor for me to lead for more than 20 years now. Every day has been an opportunity to bear witness to humans doing more and better together than they ever imagined doing alone.

My interest in community development and placemaking began more than 20 years ago, finding my true vocational calling in working side by side with adults with developmental disabilities, increasing their access to and joy in recreation and wellbeing opportunities. Serving as a nonprofit leader with resettling refugee families imparted vital lessons about the impact of trauma, the importance of hospitality, and the value of welcome. As my career brought me to Athens several years ago, an inherent spirit of curiosity and innovation, and commitment to collaboration was responsible for connecting guests at the Our Daily Bread Community Kitchen with life changing educational opportunities but also, importantly, a warm meal and hospitality.

Then, it was an honor to serve as the launching director and Project Manager for Envision Athens, a public-private partnership that was the first of its kind to launch into a full program of collaborative and community organized work. Altogether, this movement resulted in lives saved through increased access to Naloxone, increased access to fresh food, and active work groups who continue to meet to this day, among other collective achievements.

Now it is a pleasure and incredible opportunity to serve with a remarkable team of humans as the CEO of the Food Bank of Northeast Georgia. Among the greatest blessings of this role are the chance to come alongside and lift up, empower, and celebrate and lift up younger leaders toward their full potential. Together, we aim to bring hunger to functional zero in our lifetimes, and it is due to the support of this one-of-a-kind community that our ambitions are set so high. Achieving the outcome of a state of the art $15M facility to better serve our 15-counties with nourishing food is a testament to what we can accomplish when our sights are set on something more significant than individual glory or sufficiency.

In each endeavor, my work has been marked by a reverence for partnership, a desire to learn from others, and commitment to compassion and efficacy. For the love of Athens and our region, I am thrilled to come to work each day, and am
humbled by the leaders gone before me and those yet to come. In everything, my love for God and my neighbor is the supreme goal.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Like everyone, my road has always been smooth, and it is likely the roughest parts of the road that provided a refining fire for my spirit and opened the door to the empathy that is so important in leading thoughtfully and well.

Losing my sister to breast cancer at age 27 taught me to revel in the moments that we are given and to make the most of every single one. Also, as I age beyond my sister’s lifespan, rather than bemoan silver streaks in my hair and aging, I receive it as a gift that my sister did not have. Life is a gift.

Losing my father when I was carrying my son taught me the power of a great father in a daughter’s life. My father never met a stranger and taught me that I could do anything in this world because he sincerely believed that I could. He trained me to ask questions and stand by my convictions, He believed in the most possible good and insisted on it whenever he could and called people higher to it. He taught me the power of unconditional love and the unquenchable fire of parental influence. I can still hear his bass voice over a Fender guitar belting out a Chuck Berry or Everly Brothers song- he also shared with me the gift of music.

In every loss and hardship, the presence of God’s goodness and provision has been ultimate and clear. Today I celebrate a loving marriage of more than 20 years, and sons that it is a joy to raise. I carry parts of my sister and father with me every day, and my prayer is that what I learned from them radiates through me to others and in the world.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My specialty is helping others reach their potential and doing so by creating spaces that are values-driven and therefore galvanizing toward tremendous outcomes. At the Food Bank, we are guided daily by our core values of Accountability, Belonging, Compassion, Dignity, Efficacy and Stewardship.

Leadership can often be limited or even undermined by false dichotomies, especially when a woman is leading, with assumptions such as “I can either be kind or hold people accountable.” Both are essential, and it is the interaction of core values and holding them all in tension that creates healthy and thriving organizations where people are safe to show up and become their best selves.

A project that I’m very excited about is a children’s book that I’m hoping to release in the next year, displaying the power of the questions children bring, and is a fun play on the role of food in our lives. I’m excited to activate the creative part of my brain while spending so much time in the operations and logistics of food banking- moving 16 million pounds of food in a year is a tall order!

Finally, being a good team player is so important, and I hope and believe this is how I’m known…. being the last in the line, willing to clean up a (literal) mess, and willing to have the conversation no one else wanted to have. By stepping in to do the hard things, I hope my team sees that my care for them is authentic and willing to sacrifice. This connects for me, inherently and implicitly, to what Jesus has done in my life and his reign in it.

Can you share something surprising about yourself?
I think that folks might be surprised that I have a children’s book in the wings waiting to be released, and maybe that I love to dance and also teach a weekly Spin class at the Athens YMCA (one of my favorite places in the universe).

Contact Info:

• Website: https://foodbanknega.org/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erinbarger/

Image Credits
Please share which photos you choose to use, as they have different photo credits. Photographers include Sara Wooten and Clay Benfield.