Food for Others donations
Operates four core services. First, emergency food is provided to individuals and families referred by social services organizations to the Food for Others’ warehouse in Merrifield, Virginia. These clients are provided with several days’ worth of food thus buying time for other sources of assistance to be arranged or for the crisis to pass. New in July of 2016, the emergency clients are able to “shop” in our choice area of the warehouse accompanied by a volunteer. This client choice option gives clients more dignity in choosing their own food and cuts down on food waste. Additionally, clients meeting the income eligibility guidelines may return monthly for U.S. Department of Agriculture commodities (The Emergency Food Assistance Program) at the warehouse. The warehouse is open for these programs Monday through Friday, 9:30am until 5:00pm.
The second service is Neighborhood Site distributions that occur weeknights at 15 sites in low-income neighborhoods across Fairfax County (10 sites), Falls Church (2 sites), and Arlington County (3 sites). Volunteers pick up food at the warehouse and then distribute it at these designated locations. Northern Virginians in need of free food line up and are served after answering the only question asked: “How many people are in your family?” These various sites are currently serviced a total of 25 times each week at 6pm or 6:30pm. Food for Others also serves 1 Neighborhood Site one time per month during the day in Annandale.
Lastly, Food for Others provides weekend food to children through our Power Pack Program (P3). Many children in our area have little or close to nothing to eat between their lunch at school on Friday and the breakfast that is served Monday morning. Distributed on Friday afternoons, P3 provides elementary school-aged children with a pack of food to alleviate the child’s hunger over the weekend and allow them to focus more on their school work. For the 2020-2021 school year, we served 2,478 children each week at 30 schools in Fairfax County.
