As we’ve been reporting this summer, local demand for food pantry services is way up. WMRA’s Ayse Pirge continues our occasional series on food aid with a visit to a pantry in Charlottesville that’s been serving the community for 20 years.
Pet food and diapers were unexpected items I spotted during a visit to Loaves and Fishes food pantry in Charlottesville. Jane Colony Mills, the food pantry’s executive director, showed me around during recently during a distribution hour. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, the team converted all of their distribution to outside and decided to keep that model after the pandemic.
In addition to seven full time and seven part time staff, the pantry has 125 volunteers a week. Groceries are distributed four days a week, with Tuesdays by appointment and pickups on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The pickups are first-come first-served. Mills tells me that every day they prepare a menu that shows what items they have available. They also review it with people receiving the items to make sure they’re getting what they choose.
JANE COLONY MILLS: You know if there’s dental limitations, if someone’s diabetic, if someone’s got heart disease, we want to make sure we’re giving them something that’s safe for them to eat. So, that’s one of the areas where we’ve really kind of focused is making sure that most of the food we give out is healthy. And that we’re giving people food that they want.
Mills said they’re trying to supplement the food that people need over the course of the month. The goal is to provide a week’s worth of groceries each time someone visits and for everyone in the house. And they’re selective about what they provide.
MILLS: Anything that we would not eat ourselves, and that’s our rule, goes to, into buckets and we have pig farmers who pick it up.
While the quantity of groceries varies depending on household size, there is a base amount of food that everyone receives. Mills says they try to make sure to refer people to other pantries if they have other needs or show them how to enroll in SNAP if they quality.
The pantry does not restrict where their patrons may come from, and allows food pickups two times a month. But Mills said that if someone makes a third or fourth visit, they will get food.
MILLS: My feeling is if somebody makes the effort to get here–
REPORTER: …they need it…
MILLS: …they need it, yeah.
The pantry picks up donations from nine different grocery stores every week and has a partnership with the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank. They also receive donations from sources such as individuals, foundations and businesses.
MILLS: We buy the milk and eggs, and we cannot be every household’s single source of milk and eggs, because, I mean, we order nine hundred dozen every two weeks (laughs). So, so we’ve, you know, we’ve really perfected this process, the only thing that’s hard is on a hot day like today. It’s supposed to be a hundred today.
They also added a kitchen after hearing from many people who didn’t know how to use some of the food that they were getting. The pantry also features a mobile kitchen and an induction cooker.
MILLS: ...So, we built the kitchen to look like what you might have in your house. So, some people might have only a microwave. Some people might have a microwave and a stovetop but no oven. Some people might have only an air fryer.
She also said that it’s important to be culturally responsive to food preferences.
MILLS: We try to do foods that people will recognize, so being culturally responsive to food is really important to us, since we have a lot of Afghans and we have a lot of Latinos, we try to provide food that they’re gonna recognize.
And the pantry is more than just food distribution to those who need it. Monica Davis, who is one of the pantry’s dietitian nutritionists, told me about other pantry projects, including a monthly newsletter and cooking classes.
Davis says they try to use recipes that are simple, don’t take a lot of ingredients, would have a wide appeal, and are healthy.
As we’ve previously reported, demand for food aid this year is high, and it’s been increasing since the pandemic. Eleven thousand people got food from the pantry in July, and Mills says that she budgeted more this year than ever to buy food.
The pantry’s 2023 impact report shows a 49% increase in people receiving groceries compared to the previous year, with more than 100,000 individuals in roughly 27,000 households receiving groceries.
MILLS: We try to be generous, I mean, there’s no shortage of food in Charlottesville, there’s just shortage of access.
Despite the exceptionally hot day when I toured the food pantry, staff and volunteers were working to provide groceries to those who made the visit a sign of support for people who need it.
