A Simple Gesture To Pick Up 1,300 Bags Of Food This Weekend

RESTON, VA — Sixty-one volunteers will be fanning out over Northern Virginia this Saturday with one simple mission — to pick up green bags packed with food donations to help people experiencing food insecurity.

When a driver picks up the food, he or she will leave another green bag, so the donor will always have a green bag in their home to fill. The food will then be taken to four local food pantries — Cornerstones, LINK Against Hunger in Herndon, the South Lakes High School food pantry; and St. Anne's Episcopal Church's pantry — for distribution.

"The point really is to just help our neighbors who are food insecure," said Bob Schnapp, who founded A Simple Gesture at the Shoreshim Jewish Community in June 2015. He came up with the idea after reading about a similar initiative in The Wall Street Journal.

"Somebody had started something in California and I'd been looking for something to do in food insecurity, and I said, 'Well you know, I think I can do this,'" he said. "So I asked my congregation for money to purchase Cool Green Bags and for some printing. We would make it as sort of a long-term social action project."

With the first drive, the group collected about 20 bags, which indicated to Schnapp that this was something that could work. Through word of mouth, A Simple Gesture doubled its initial drive to 40 bags the next time out and has continued to grow with each successive pickup.

"It just started growing," he said. "We never advertised. It was just people telling each other about it or putting into Next Door, that internet blog thing."

Since its inception, the Reston nonprofit has collected a total of 385,820 pounds of food.

"We started with 20 donors," Schnapp said. "Now we have 1,300 donors and the past couple of times we've collected about 25,000 pounds of food, which would feed an estimated 1,200 families of four for a week.

According to Fairfax County, approximately 58,000 residents and more than 23,000 children are experiencing food insecurity. When Schnapp first heard those numbers, he was inspired to do something to address the problem.

"It just kind of blew me away. So I said, 'We have to do something about this," Schnapp said. "It took me a little while but I founded it and I'm very glad that I started it."

In recognition of his efforts, A Simple Gesture was named a 2019 Best of Reston honoree presented by Greater Reston Chamber of Commerce and SOS International LLC.

When the coronavirus pandemic hit earlier this year, A Simple Gesture felt the impact like many other organizations. Since things were so uncertain, the nonprofit decided to skip its scheduled April pickup, but it resumed its regular schedule on Aug. 1, collecting 24,564 pounds of food.

While this was going on, local pantries saw an increase in demand for their services due to the pandemic. From June to September, more than 6,100 families and individuals reached out to Cornerstones for assistance, the charity's CEO Kerrie Wilson told Patch earlier this month. From April to June, 621 households received help from Cornerstones' Food Pantry, a 216 percent increase over the same period in 2019.

"With or without COVID, the need continues on," Schnapp said.

While it's too late to sign up for Saturday's pickup, anyone interested filling a bag for the next scheduled pickup on Dec. 5 can sign up on www.CoolGreenBag.org to have a Cool Green Bag delivered to their home. Then, on the first Saturday of every other month, all they have to do is fill the bag with nonperishable foods and then place it outside their front door.

"One of my friends once told me, 'People in this area are really generous. They really want to give. You just need to make it easy for them,'" Schnapp said. "This makes it easy for them. They literally pick up the bag and put it outside their front door. That's all they have to do."

Also see ...

Cornerstones Helps Families Struggling Due To Coronavirus

Patch has partnered with Feeding America to help raise awareness on behalf of the millions of Americans facing hunger. Feeding America, which supports 200 food banks across the country, estimates that in 2020, more than 54 million Americans will not have enough nutritious food to eat due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. This is a Patch social good project; Feeding America receives 100 percent of donations. Find out how you can donate in your community or find a food pantry near you.