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Central Virginia Food Bank Provides Hunger Relief During Pandemic

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Feed More has always focused on providing Central Virginians in need with food. During the COVID-19 pandemic, their services have been more in need than ever, and this nonprofit is rising to the occasion.

When COVID-19 was declared a national emergency at the beginning of March, Feed More, a hunger-relief organization serving Central Virginians, was serving roughly 161,000 food-insecure individuals. 

Fast forward to early June, and Feed More was assisting more than 241,000 food-insecure individuals, according to Doug Pick, CEO and president of Feed More. 

“It [the pandemic] increased the number of folks that weren’t sure where their next meal was coming from by about 50 percent,” Pick said.

That 50 percent increase, he said, was largely from those who were newly unemployed as a result of the pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated food insecurity throughout Virginia and across the country. With 2020 coming to a close, food insecurity is lingering in many Virginia households as hunger-relief organizations and local officials scramble to curb one of the pandemics’ consequences.

Food insecurity is defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as limited or uncertain availability or accessibility to nutritionally adequate food. Nearly 10 percent of all Virginians — or almost 843,000 people — are struggling with hunger, according to Feeding America, a nationwide hunger-relief organization.

An additional 447,000 Virginians will experience food insecurity because of the coronavirus pandemic, Feeding America estimates. Across the country, millions of Americans have lined up in their cars or by foot for miles at food banks awaiting their next meal.

Photo courtesy Feed More.

Nationwide, food banks also have to grapple with the dilemma of increased demand while maintaining their agencies network. In 2019, Feed More distributed about 32 million pounds of food, Pick said. This year, he estimates the organization will distribute between 40 to 44 million pounds of food. The nonprofit distributes food with the help of agencies, including churches, emergency shelters, rehab centers, soup kitchens, and other organizations. 

“We worried about that network collapsing because most of those agencies are run by volunteers, and a lot of them are seniors,” Pick said. At one point this year, Feed More lost 13 percent of its 270 agencies.

Feed More did not witness the phenomenon of long lines other regions experienced and was able to meet the community’s food crisis, Pick said. 

“We put out some guiding principles early on that said: stick with our infrastructure, never abandon the infrastructure you built unless you have to,” Pick said. “So, we didn’t panic.”

Those guiding principles upheld Feed More’s mission while adhering to COVID-19 safety precautions. 

Feed More’s Meals on Wheels program usually serves meals daily, but it is now delivering these meals frozen, once a week. The organization’s community kitchen, which preps approximately 20,000 meals a week, now is divided into two kitchen spaces – a prepping kitchen and a cooking kitchen – in two separate buildings, according to Pick.

Recent research found that the number of families who experienced food insecurity increased by 20 percent in the United States as a result of the pandemic. The study was co-authored by Elizabeth Adams, a postdoctoral fellow at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Massey Cancer Center. 

“We all know (the pandemic) had so many profound effects across so many aspects of people’s lives and has gone on for a long time,” Adams said.

The study methodology surveyed households across the country in late April and May with different food security levels – high food security, low food security and very low food security – about food consumption during the pandemic.

The survey saw a 73 percent increase in home cooking across all food security levels. The amount of in-home food availability increased 56 percent for food-secure families but decreased 53 percent for low food-secure families.

“For very low food-security families, we saw an increase in pressure to eat,” Adams said, “which means that parents are pressuring their children to eat more.”

Food is prepared for distribution at FeedMore, one of U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) partner agencies, located in Richmond, Virginia. USDA Photo by Preston Keres.

Adams said she hopes the government takes notice of the data on how widespread food insecurity is across the country, which she said disproportionately affects low-income Black and Hispanic families. 

While bringing awareness to the importance of government assistance programs and other food assistance initiatives, Adams called for these programs to “really up the benefit that they are providing at this time, because we see that a lot more people likely need them.”

Programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, saw an increase in enrollment during the initial months of the pandemic’s spread in the United States, reported the New York Times. According to data collected by the New York Times, SNAP grew 17 percent from February to May, three times faster than any prior three-month period.

In March, 687,984 Virginians were enrolled on food stamps. That number jumped to 746,608 the following month, an 8.5 percent increase, according to estimates from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Since March, eligible Virginians have been granted SNAP emergency benefits during the pandemic, according to The Virginia Department of Social Services. The agency recently expanded these benefits through December, with more than 245,000 households eligible for emergency benefits.

The state recently launched the Virginia Roadmap to End Hunger initiative that seeks to end hunger by developing policies, programs and partnerships.

Feed More and its partners had a stable food supply and community support because of government assistance, Pick said. Such assistance includes the USDA Farmers to Families Food Box Program. Food banks, such as Feed More, and other nonprofits were able to give out family-sized boxes of produce and meat products that the department purchased from farmers and distributors affected by the closure of restaurants and other food-service businesses.

Governor Ralph Northam also announced in November $7 million in Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security Act funding. The funding will be allocated to the Federation of Virginia Food Banks, which Feed More is a member.

“The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the already serious problem of food insecurity in Virginia and across the country,” Northam stated in a press release. “This funding will help Virginia food banks and other food assistance programs meet the increased demand for their services and ensure every Virginian has continued access to nutritious food during these challenging times.”

Feed More will use its allocated $1 million to provide refrigeration, freezer, racking, and vehicles to its partner agencies.

However, Pick said he is concerned for the following year as the pandemic continues. He said there needs to be long-term government policies to address food insecurities beyond food banks’ control. 

“The food banks have always been here for emergency purposes. When people get to a tight bind,” he said. 

For now, Pick said Feed More will continue its best to provide food assistance to Central Virginians.

“The need is out there,” Pick said. “The jobs are not coming back overnight, and this (food insecurity) is just going to continue on.” 

Written by David Tran, Capital News Service. Top Photo: Feed More Meals on Wheels volunteers. Photo courtesy Feed More.

Connecting Families And Food

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Local nonprofit Bridging RVA steps in to provide meals to those in need during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On an overcast Saturday morning, the Extra Space Storage facility on Mall Drive in Bon Air has an unassuming appearance. But under the high-ceilinged arch, two units are open to reveal a sea of brown paper bags full of groceries. To the side are carts stacked with bread and a table, carefully organized with sheets of schedules and driving routes.

Every week, Lee Ann and John Sawyer, the founders of Bridging RVA, along with three masked and gloved volunteers, spend their Saturday loading cars with these supplies and sending them on delivery runs. This is part of their Drop-Knock-Leave program, which brings weekly food and essential supply packages to families in need, without direct contact, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“When these cars drive up, we have their route ready for them to pick up. They get their bags, they get a piece of paper, they’re asked the CDC questions to screen for COVID-19, and everybody has masks,” said Lee Ann Sawyer. “They load their car, and they leave with their ten or twelve households to stop at.”

Volunteers with their loaded cars, ready to deliver groceries to families in need. Photos via Bridging RVA

Bridging RVA is a Richmond-based nonprofit aimed at advancing common good in the local community. They run three main initiatives every year: 150 Beds for 150 Kids, Christmas Day Dinner, and Teacher Appreciation Week at Title I Schools. Usually, Teacher Appreciation Week occurs in late March, but when schools shut down in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19, it became clear that the events could not continue this year.

With the cancellation of schools came a slew of issues, not the least of which included remote learning and childcare; however, schools are also a platform to reach students who need help. Feed More, another nonprofit working to combat food insecurity, provides students in need with food for the weekend through their Weekend Backpack program. They send nutritious foods home with children on Fridays to ensure they are fed even when they’re not provided with school lunch. But with COVID-19, there were no schools to distribute those backpacks.

“All of a sudden there was no vehicle in Chesterfield County to deliver the weekend bags that the kids would typically take home with them,” recalled Sawyer. “So we said, ‘You know what? We’ll be the vehicle.’”

But as the board of Bridging RVA discussed the program more, they realized that a family who couldn’t provide for a child probably couldn’t provide for anyone else either. As a result, they took it upon themselves to redirect all of the funds and efforts they would have put into Teacher Appreciation Week, and instead mobilized to provide an entire week’s worth of groceries to every family in need, for the duration of the pandemic.

A graph of the number of children and families served since the beginning of the Drop-Knock-Leave program. Courtesy Bridging RVA

Since they began the Drop-Kock-Leave program on March 19, Bridging RVA has delivered supplies to more than 2,000 families in Chesterfield County. It’s all been possible thanks to their expansive volunteer network. Each Friday morning, three to four volunteers meet to pack the paper bags full of groceries, paying special attention to allergy alerts and other needs.

That evening, all volunteers who signed up for a delivery slot get an email detailing their time window, so no two cars arrive for pickup simultaneously, reducing the number of people who gather at once. When a car pulls up, five people are at the ready to give the driver a route and load the vehicle. After snapping a quick picture, the delivery volunteers are on their way. At each house, volunteers drop the designated bag in front of the door, knock, and leave before the residents open the door, minimizing any potential risk of spreading COVID-19.

Monique Jones is a volunteer for Bridging RVA. When she got an email about the Drop-Knock-Leave program, she immediately signed up, and has been delivering bags every week since. She expressed how important she believes the initiative is, and praised John and Lee Ann Sawyer for their incredible organizational skills. When asked about her favorite part of volunteering, Jones said she appreciates the opportunity to connect with her son, a 21 year old college student who came home when his campus was shut down and now helps her with her route.

“My 21 year old talks to me and we banter back and forth. Sometimes we fuss at each other ‘You didn’t tell me to turn quick enough and now I’ve missed the turn!’ you know?” she said with a laugh. “So it’s actually been a great experience having him in the car with me for those two hours.”

More importantly, she explained that the delivery experience has given her and her son a new perspective.

“I think our first experience was in a neighborhood that was an apartment complex,” Jones recalled. “[My son] was kind of surprised about the conditions of some of these complexes and where people lived. We didn’t even know that some of these areas of Chesterfield County existed. We just had never been in them.”

A map of houses served for one week of the Drop-Knock-Leave program. Image via Bridging RVA

Gauging the hidden needs of the community and filling in the gaps is what Bridging RVA strives to do. Lee Ann Sawyer explained that they frequently provide for those in need on an individual basis through a “rapid response.” Essentially, anyone — a social worker, school administrator, or community member — who sees a need in the community, however small, can contact a Bridging RVA board member and ask them to help fill the gaps with resources or labor.

“We have a deep well of people with different skills, from physicians to carpenters, and electricians. So we’re not defined by beds, or Christmas Day dinner, or teachers. We can do so many things,” said Sawyer. “Any of our board members can get a call, and we have the freedom to send a text out and say, ‘Hey, I have a need, I want to go for it. Are we all good?’ And we just make it happen that day.”

Above all else, Bridging RVA strives to be adaptive and helpful to the community in whatever capacity their services are needed.

“It’s multiple little acts of kindness,” said Sawyer. “We want to meet people where they are.”

If you’re interested in volunteering or donating, please visit Bridging RVA’s website at http://www.bridgingrva.com/home.

Top Photo: Volunteers with bags packed for the Drop-Knock-Leave program. Via Bridging RVA/Facebook

Farms Feed Food Banks to Fight Hunger

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Today, many contributions to food banks are not rejects from retail but fresh-picked from local farms. The farm-to-food-bank movement is helping fight hunger in Virginia, where 10% of the population is food-insecure.

Lettuce, turnips and beets — oh my! Vegetables and flowers sprout side by side in a bountiful garden in Northside Richmond. But the harvest is not going to a grocery store or market stand. Instead, all of the crops will be donated to local food banks so low-income communities have access to fresh foods.

The Kroger Community Kitchen Garden, situated within Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, is a major contributor to Feed More, the parent organization for food banks and other agencies fighting hunger in 34 counties and cities in Central Virginia.

In the past, food banks relied on nonperishable donations from supermarkets and other businesses. Today, many of the contributions are not rejects from retail but fresh picked from local farms.

Farm-to-food-bank programs bring healthier options to people facing “food insecurity” — living without means or access to nutritious food. Such programs also offer producers an alternative market for the fruit and vegetables they have grown.

A national organization called Feeding America partners with food banks across the state, including Feed More in Richmond and the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank in Charlottesville, to create a network of hunger relief. Annie Andrews, director of operations at Feed More, said the movement has redefined the support food banks can provide for struggling communities.

“Ten, 15 years ago, food banks were reliant on shelf stable product; you looked at it as a pantry. We’ve absolutely converted to fresh and perishable food,” Andrews said.

The need for food is not solved by a corner store that sells chips and hot dogs. Farm-to-food-bank programs aim to supply better quality food that doesn’t just fill hungry bellies but also provides nutrition to prevent health problems.

Last year, Feed More received nearly $45 million in donated food — almost 30 million pounds of groceries. While retailers contributed more than 60%, about 12% came directly from growers. Produce accounted for 29% of all donated food.

Greg Knight, food sourcing manager for the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, said most people who rely on food banks are not unemployed but rather underemployed. Often, they must choose between which basic needs they can afford, he said.

“We hear from clients that sometimes they have to make decisions between ‘Is it going to be gasoline today, or will it be groceries? Will it be the medication that my son or daughter needs, or will it be groceries or the electric bill?’” Knight said.

“There’s not enough funds to cover the immediate basic needs — so that’s where we step in. At least we can provide a good supplemental box of food that will then be nutritious and alleviate some of the other pressures.”

The state and federal governments have encouraged farmers to help out.

In 2016, Virginia instituted a tax credit as an incentive for farmers to donate crops to regional, nonprofit food banks. In exchange for the donation, farmers receive a 30% tax credit equal to the market value up to $5,000 yearly.

Knight said the tax credit is a great way to support farmers and provide food for those in need.

“What I’m paying for the box is only a portion of what the farmer would get at market. So he can take the difference between the two — market price and what I’m paying — and that difference then becomes a donation for him,” Knight said.

On the national level, Congress passed the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 to allocate $867 billion in subsidies over the next 10 years to support farmers harmed by fluctuating markets or poor harvests. The food purchased by the U.S. Department of Agriculture from farmers is often resold to food banks like Feed More at a reduced cost.

Community plants seeds for change

The USDA reported that since 2012, about 10% of households in Virginia qualified as “food insecure.” Andrews said the definition of that term is constantly evolving and varies by area.

In a densely populated urban area, she said, it means “there are no grocery stores within a mile.” But in a rural area, food insecurity (or a “food desert”) means “there’s not a grocery store within 10 miles,” Andrews added.

“The gentrification of cities coming into play and people moving into the suburbs — that’s where you’re kind of pushing some of that working poor out,” Andrews said. She said Feed More is seeing a rising need for help in the suburbs — “what you wouldn’t think of as a food insecurity area.”

The Kroger Community Kitchen Garden at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden and Shalom Farms in Midlothian are among the biggest farm donors to Feed More.

Laurel Matthew, senior horticulturist at Lewis Ginter, oversees the community garden and decides what to grow in collaboration with Feed More.

“We have six varieties of summer squash. We have four varieties of eggplant. Lettuce, beans, peas, you name it — we’re trying to get it in the ground,” Matthew said.

The Kroger Community Kitchen Garden is an urban gardening program that has harvested and donated over 50,000 pounds of produce to Feed More since it began in 2009.

The community garden is one-third acre, funded in part by Kroger Mid-Atlantic under the company’s “Zero Hunger | Zero Waste” initiative. A volunteer base of 700 worked last year with on-staff horticulturalists to practice organic management of the garden and sustain a healthy harvest for the food bank.

Food banks tackle food-related health disparities

Feed More’s agency network involves almost 300 nonprofit organizations such as soup kitchens and emergency shelters. Healthy Harvest Food Bank joined the network in 2010 and last year became Feed More’s first Partner Distribution Organization, which aims to distribute food across 24 of Virginia’s rural agencies. The agency network distributed 19.3 million pounds of food during the past fiscal year.

Healthy Harvest Food Bank serves 12,000 people every month through 25 locations across six counties. In 2012, the food bank conducted a survey and found that 32% of its clients had diabetes.

The food bank partnered with Northern Neck-Middlesex Free Health Clinic and Virginia Cooperative Extension to begin a Healthy Food Pharmacy to teach clients with Type 2 diabetes how to prepare flavorful, nutritious meals to combat health issues. Participants in the eight-week class on average lowered their blood pressure by 17% and low-density lipoproteins cholesterol by 26%. (LDL is considered “bad” cholesterol because of its artery-clogging properties.)

Mark Kleinschmidt, president and CEO of Healthy Harvest Food Bank, said the Northern Neck and Upper Middle Peninsula region suffers from a culture of genetics and a lack of resources to escape the health crisis trap.

“We got a Food Lion and a Walmart, and there’s not that healthy options to eat at whatsoever,” Kleinschmidt said.

He said people want to eat healthy foods but often can’t.

“For one, it’s not available. And two, it’s a cost issue,” Kleinschmidt said. “I think there is always going to be this issue. The Northern Neck will never be big enough to have a Kroger or a Harris Teeter or a Wegman that does have healthier options.”

Legislation to create the Virginia Grocery Investment Program and Fund was introduced to the General Assembly this session. It aimed to provide financial incentives for grocery stores to expand in food deserts.

After passing unanimously in the Senate, the bill died in the House of Delegates. A similar House bill was killed in a House subcommittee early in the session.

Food banks rescue food from waste

According to the USDA, 30-40% of food is wasted in the U.S. annually. Grocery chains such as Lidl have joined the movement against food waste by selling 10-pound crates of “ugly” produce for $2. Food banks are incorporating the “ugly food” movement into their means of sourcing quality food for people living in food insecure areas.

The Mid-Atlantic Regional Cooperative was created by Feeding America and stretches from New England to Virginia, providing nearly 1.5 million pounds of produce to food banks each month. The cooperative works to minimize food waste by purchasing “ugly,” rejected food at a large produce market. That produce is then sold back to a network of 23 food banks, including Feed More, for a reduced price.

Andrews said the rescued, unsold produce purchased from large companies along the East Coast saves the stores money, reduces food waste and increases food bank access to resources.

“We offer the opportunity for [grocery stores] not to have an increased trash bill and to be able to do something good with the things that they aren’t able to use and sell,” Andrews said.

By Kathleen Shaw and Corrine Fizer, Capital News Service. Top photo: Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden’s Kroger Community Garden, by Kathleen Shaw

The Government Shutdown Is Over (For Now), But Its Effects On Virginia Remain

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With another potential shutdown looming, concerns over tax refunds, food stamps, and adequate housing for the state’s low-income residents are still significant.

The federal government’s 34-day partial shutdown – the longest in US history – impacted more than 64,000 federal workers in Virginia, the sixth most affected state. Wage loss totaled about $381 million just three weeks into the shutdown. Local agencies who work to house and feed low income communities saw the effects on these individuals firsthand.

Housing Families First works to provide shelter, safety and stability to those displaced by homelessness. The agency’s services include emergency shelters for families with children, a permanent housing program called “Rapid Rehousing,” and a hotline designed to connect people in need with a network of organizations.

“At the end of the day, it’s all about helping families get to stay in a permanent home,” said Beth Vann-Turnbull, executive director of Housing Families First.

Vann-Turnbull says that although most of their clients are not federal workers, the shutdown has sparked an increased insecurity surrounding the continued benefits of food stamps.

“Because of the shutdown, the February assistance was issued in January, and they asked people to stretch that through February,” she said.

The government could potentially resume its shutdown status on February 15, leaving people’s ability to access food stamps uncertain.

“In early February, the food stamp issue is ‘will be getting them?’” Vann-Turnbull said. “[Their absence] truly would create a crisis. People were already accessing food banks at a much higher rate.”

Doug Pick, CEO of the local food assistance agency Feed More, confirmed.

“Quantitatively, we have seen a 58 percent increase in hunger hotline calls in the last week,” he said in an interview conducted in the last days of the shutdown.

Feed More also hosted a pop-up food distribution for federal workers who were furloughed or working without pay.

“With only two days notice and one paycheck missed, we helped out 83 households,” Pick said. “We intend to do another one on Friday [January 25]. My guess is the same folks will come back, and word of mouth and a second missed paycheck will swell those numbers.”

Vann-Turnbull also worried that a prolonged shutdown would affect the processing of applications for new recipients of food stamps.

“That creates a great deal of stress for our families trying to budget food stamps, not knowing if they’re going to get them or when,” she said. “So that’s a very direct impact on many of the families we work with right now, trying to help them stabilize.”

Clients of Housing Families First are also concerned about the prospect of a delayed issuance of the earned income tax credit as part of their federal tax returns for this year. The IRS has made assurances that the government shutdown would not delay income tax processing for 2019, but the first weeks of tax season have seen the government processing refunds more slowly than usual.

Meanwhile, with the impending threat of another shutdown on February 15, experts are warning taxpayers to file as quickly as possible in order to avoid returns potentially being even further delayed.

“A lot of our families are looking forward to and depending on getting that refund to sustain them for several months going forward,” Vann-Turnbull said. “That supplemental income is a lot of concern to our families. If they don’t get that income tax refund, how will they make ends meet? It ends up being that little boost that really helps people make it through the rest of the year.”

Housing Families First is largely dependent – more than half of their million dollar budget – on the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The department was closed during the shutdown.

“Our grant [from HUD] for this year was already open and running, and that’s how we’ve been able to access it, through an electronic system,” said Vann-Turnbull. “However, if at some point over time HUD’s electronic system gets shut down, or can’t be fixed if it has a bug and there’s nobody there to to fix it, that would cause immense stress and a cash flow crunch to us. We would have to choose between not paying rent that we’ve committed to… or continuing to lay out money and not have it reimbursed promptly.”

The threat of the government shutting down again in February continues to leave Virginia’s most vulnerable populations in a lull of uncertainty and financial anxiety.

“For our families who are trying to get back on their feet,  they have budgets that don’t have room for error, and don’t have room for food stamps or tax refunds to really be delayed,” said Vann-Turnbull. “That’s where it’s really been stressful in trying to plan for the unknown. It’s hard.”

Photo via Feed More