When you step through the doors of Good Samaritan Food Pantry and Clothing Closet, located in Orange, Virginia, you’re greeted immediately by a pleasant floral scent. You hear a chorus of laughter and goodwilled wisecracks from the volunteers working in the back. A voice calls out, “How are you? How can we help you [...]
Summer is a carefree time for many kids, but not all. In the Blue Ridge region, 1 in every 12 children is experiencing food insecurity. When that last bell rings, these students lose access to school breakfast and lunch for two whole months—food that many depend on to stay active and healthy throughout the [...]
One thing we can all agree on is that everyone should have enough to eat. In pursuit of this vision, the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank helps fill the gap between need and what government benefits provide. The most significant governmental hunger-relief program is SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly the Food Stamp program). SNAP [...]
Women are strong, compassionate, and resilient. Yet, despite decades of progress in gender equality, women disproportionately experience hunger and poverty compared to American men. As we emerge from the worst of the pandemic crisis, an elevated need for food assistance is being fueled by an uneven economic recovery, especially for women and low-skilled workers, [...]
As I reflect upon my time interning at the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, I think about the first story I helped gather at the Timberville Mobile Food Pantry one cold January day. The woman we spoke to faced many challenges and relied on the Food Bank to feed her [...]
Food Bank pantry partner MESA demonstrates what it means to be a community food hub If you’ve ever spent time in Madison County, you’ve heard about the flood. In 1995, a thunderstorm stalled in the mountains and released a deluge on the rolling hills and farmland below. Flash flooding claimed three lives, and many more lost everything they had to the storm. Crisis is [...]
“It’ll take a lifetime to give back all that was given to me,” Sally Latimer said at the start of another busy day at the Monacan Indian Nation Food Bank in Amherst, which works with the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank. Sally and her team of four were preparing for a contactless distribution, serving [...]
When I volunteered to read through 40 years’ worth of minutes from the Food Bank’s Board of Directors meetings, my reasons were simple: I wanted to have an inside look at how this all started. I wanted to understand the “big picture.” I knew it’d be exciting to help prepare for the Food Bank’s [...]
The vision of the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank is that everyone has enough to eat. We are also aware that food insecurity often resides alongside the need for affordable housing. A community partnership between the Food Bank and the Windy Hill Foundation, located in the Lord Fairfax service region, addresses both critical needs. [...]
At B.F. Yancey Community Center, history flows through the halls. Children’s handprints, stamped in screaming color, freckle the white-brick walls. Hand-painted notes accompany the art. Once home to an elementary school, the building is inextricable from its past. In fact, every weekday at 2:25 p.m., the bell still rings. In 1960, educator [...]