Annandale Area Students Need Your Help!

Over 2,700 households in Northern Virginia are working with Food For Neighbors to end teen food insecurity. Help us reach 2,800 so we can better fill the weekend food gap for students in your local secondary schools! Sign up to donate food and toiletries up to five times per year via our popular Red Bag Program. You’ll be helping students attending Annandale, Falls Church, and Justice High Schools as well as Luther Jackson Middle School.

As Annandale High School is one of our newer school partners, we’re looking for lots of Red Bag donors in nearby neighborhoods. If you sign up by Wednesday, November 1st, you’ll be able to support our November 11th Red Bag Event!

• Request a Bag: Visit our website to learn more and register as a food and toiletry donor. A Food For Neighbors volunteer will drop off a Red Bag with a tag noting our grocery list and five annual collection dates.

• Fill Your Bag: The next time you’re at the grocery store, shop for some of the items on the grocery list.

• Leave Your Bag Out: On the requested dates, put your food and toiletry donations in your Red Bag and place the Red Bag on your doorstep. A volunteer will collect your donations and leave you a new Red Bag for the next collection. The volunteer brings your donations to the nearest of nine working sites, where additional community members sort the food and toiletries and deliver them to participating schools near you.

During each of our Red Bag Events, we’re currently collecting well over 20,000 pounds of food and toiletries to help students in 42 Northern Virginia middle and high schools. As the number of students we serve continues to grow, your donations are key to helping the most vulnerable students in your local schools. School staff have shared that the reliable, supplemental food helps students attend school more regularly, focus on their schoolwork, and earn better grades.

“The fabric of our community is stronger when we weave together, and our community partners are an integral fiber of our pantry fabric," shared Norma Foti, Pantry Coordinator at the Annandale High School PTSA Pantry. "We are excited about our new partnership with Food For Neighbors. The additional student-centered food we receive from the Red Bag collections will be used to supply pantry snack bins in our student services, counseling, and resource centers allowing us to expand our pantry’s reach throughout the school day and giving the staff an additional resource to share with their students when they are meeting with them.”

Paula Prettyman, Food For Neighbors' Falls Church Area Manager, is equally excited about the partnership. "I've been amazed by the commitment of the Annandale High School PTSA in recent years to support their food insecure students and families," shared Prettyman. "Even through the pandemic, the Annandale HS Food Pantry was open. I'm looking forward to working with the PTSA and Annandale HS Principal, Shawn DeRose, to bring even more of the community in to support their high school. I hope every household who can will become an FFN Red Bag Donor."

Hunger is closer than you think. Sign up today to donate food and toiletries. If you prefer, you may make a financial donation to help us to continue to help students at our currently-partnering schools and to say “yes” to new schools requesting our support.