MOULTRIE, Ga. — State officials are investigating after a church’s plate sale sickened more than 100 people last week.

Lakeside Assembly of God hosted the plate sale Dec. 12, according to Carolyn Maschke, spokeswoman for the Georgia Department of Public Health’s Southwest Health District. The plates were delivered to businesses and individuals, but many recipients took ill soon after they ate and word passed quickly. Some people who received the dinners didn’t eat them because of that, she said.

In all, the health district is aware of 149 people who consumed the meal, Maschke said on Tuesday. Of those, 102 became sick and five went to the hospital, she said. Two of the five were admitted to the hospital, she said, but both have been released since then.

The environmental health division of the Colquitt County Health Department is responsible for inspecting restaurants, so it’s taking the lead on this investigation but its jurisdiction over a church is tenuous.

“Because it was a church that had the plating and the selling of the food, we don’t have the authority we would over a restaurant,” Maschke said.

The meat for the dinners was prepared by a Moultrie grocery store. Grocery stores are regulated by the state Department of Agriculture, and Maschke said the Ag Department is investigating the store in relation to this case.

The investigation is still in its early stages, Maschke said, but the problem appears to have occurred during the plating of the meal. She said there’s no evidence that any of the grocery store’s other customers were exposed to anything harmful.

Still, a lot of questions remain, not least of which is what the pathogen was that made people sick.

The health district has shipped samples of the meal to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for testing, Maschke said. She had no timeline for how long it would take the FDA to have results back from the tests.

Maschke said everyone involved in the plate sale has been very cooperative with investigators and seem upset about the incident. Environmental health workers have been working with them on safe food handling methods, she said.