Haymarket Women's Group Rallies Community To Assist Food Pantry

HAYMARKET, VA — A Haymarket charitable group has collected more than $42,000 and 1 ton of food to help a local food pantry meet the needs of families since the start of the coronavirus crisis. Over the past three months, the group, the Regency Women’s Club, rallied its more than 200 members to find ways to support the Haymarket Regional Food Pantry in Gainesville.

In April, the Haymarket Regional Food Pantry notified the Regency Women’s Club that, due to lack of space for adequate social distancing at its headquarters, it was moving from food collections to monetary donations to provide $75 grocery store gift cards to its clients.

The Regency Women’s Club reached out to the Dominion Valley community and within 48 hours, about 385 households contributed $34,000 in cash and checks to the Haymarket Regional Food Pantry.

“Because this was an entirely new fundraising venture, we had very low expectations,” Nancy Converse, vice president for community services at the Regency Women’s Club. “But our community has proven to be very generous whenever we have asked them to support one of our charities.”

The donation from the Regency Women's Club allowed the Haymarket Regional Food Pantry to continue its gift card program for an additional week, resulting in an additional 300 families receiving assistance.

The Regency Women’s Club promotes community service projects for educational and philanthropic purposes at the Regency at Dominion Valley in Haymarket, a community located adjacent to Dominion Valley Country Club.

The Haymarket Regional Food Pantry is a community-based nonprofit group composed entirely of volunteers dedicated to the goal of eliminating hunger. The group provides food to people in need of assistance in Haymarket, Gainesville, Manassas and the surrounding areas.

In June, the Haymarket Regional Food Pantry said it was moving to a new location so volunteers could once again distribute food instead of gift cards. The Regency Women’s Club decided to do a fill-the-shelves collection from residents to help the food pantry move into its new location

“I asked for help, and within one day, I had 34 residents volunteer,” Converse said.

The Regency Women’s Club conducted a drive-by collection. Residents were instructed to place their donations in their trunks, wear masks, pull up to the clubhouse entrance, and pop the trunk. Volunteers took the donations to a sorting area where the food was packed in bins that were transported to the Haymarket Regional Food Pantry. The effort resulted in more than 1 ton of donated food and $8,175 in cash and checks.

The Regency Women’s Club’s most recent fundraiser and collection will help the pantry supplement its food inventory, allowing it to feed more than 1,000 children who are without school meals.

Prior to the coronavirus, Haymarket Regional Food Pantry distributed food to about 100 clients and their families per week with about 210 registered clients.

“Our gift card program, which ran for five weeks in April and May, increased our registered clients to 785,” Eileen F. Smith, executive director of the Haymarket Regional Food Pantry, said in a statement. “Now that we have reopened our facilities and are back to distributing food, we are seeing nearly four times the number of clients per week.

As of June 30, the food pantry had served 12,000 people since the start of the coronavirus crisis.

The Haymarket Regional Food Pantry still needs support despite the impressive efforts of the Regency Women's Club and other groups. Visit haymarketfoodpantry.org to learn more about the food pantry, volunteering, or to make a donation.