Food For Neighbors Collects Record-Breaking 12,300 Pounds Of Food

On Saturday, September 12th, Food For Neighbors kicked off its support of 22 Fairfax and Loudoun County schools for the 2020-2021 school year by collecting a record-breaking 12,300 pounds of food during its Red Bag Program event. Unlike previous years, however, this event looked quite different because, in response to the pandemic, few if any outside organizations may use public schools at this time. Fortunately, where unable to access traditional school collection sites, Food For Neighbors established helpful partnerships with area churches, including Westwood Baptist Church in Springfield, Trinity Presbyterian Church in Herndon, and Riverside Presbyterian Church in Sterling.

“I’m so thankful for the partnership of these churches, whose help has been key to fulfilling our mission since this past March,” shared Food For Neighbors founder Karen Joseph. “ When asked, they did not hesitate to help. They serve as sites for our Red Bag Program food collection and sorting events as well as facilities for storing food and packing food. Their volunteers even help with distributing the food to students in need.”

The hub of the new Sterling site, Riverside Presbyterian enables weekly food pack distribution for Sterling Middle School, Park View High School, River Bend Middle School, and Potomac Falls High School students. Trinity Presbyterian helps to serve Herndon Middle School plus Herndon and Mountain View high school students as well as the Langston Hughes Middle School and South Lakes High School food pantry. Westwood Baptist makes providing weekend food to Irving Middle School possible, and this food also reaches students at Key and Twain middle schools as well as West Springfield, Lewis, and Edison high schools. The previously established food collection and sorting site at Jackson Middle School serves Jackson and Falls Church High School, and the Whitman Middle School site serves Whitman and Sandburg middle schools plus Bryant, Quander Road, West Potomac, and Mount Vernon high schools.

Kathy Freeman and her husband, Marty Freeman, are the liaison between Food For Neighbors and Westwood Baptist Church, where Rev. Bryan Brock serves as Pastor. From April through July, the Freemans mobilized approximately 50 volunteers to pack bags of weekend food for students in need. By the end of July, they had packed 10,000 bags, almost all of which they’ve already distributed to students in need.

Kathy, Marty, and the other Westwood Baptist volunteers feel blessed to have the opportunity to partner with Food For Neighbors. As Kathy explained, “Part of our church’s mission statement is to be the hands and feet of Christ in the community. We just felt led to do this, as it’s an outreach opportunity literally next door to our church. We knew this was going to be a great benefit to the community. It was also a great benefit to us. Serving in this way really opened our church’s eyes to how fortunate we are and to how much assistance we can give to others.”

Karen and Mark Joseph launched Food For Neighbors to address teen hunger at schools where many students had few reliable food sources other than their weekday school breakfasts and lunches. While various programs had recently begun to address this concern at the elementary school level, they were too limited to address the large middle and high school populations. In 2016, Food For Neighbors began filling this gap via its Red Bag Program, which allows individuals to shop for nonperishable items at their convenience and to set them on their doorsteps for collection approximately five times per year. Volunteers organized by neighborhoods then collect the food and bring it to one of five central locations, where it is sorted and then provided to approximately 1,200 students from 22 participating middle and high schools in Northern Virginia.

Since Nov 2016, Food For Neighbors has collected over 124,600 pounds of food. The nonprofit now has over 1,200 households donating red bags filled with shelf-stable foods plus more than 650 drivers and volunteers variously participating in the food collection and sorting events, like the one on September 12th. Thanks to these and other generous community members, Food For Neighbors also purchases additional food when supplies run low in between Red Bag Program events, and it provides grocery gift cards for students experiencing the gravest food insecurity.

Food For Neighbors welcomes donations of food, volunteer services and support, and financial contributions to continue its important mission of ending child hunger by raising awareness and community involvement. There are many ways for businesses, service organizations, foundations, and individuals to become involved. For those who are unable to shop or who are currently outside of the existing but growing service area, there’s even an option to donate via a Virtual Red Bag Program. More information is available online.