29,650 Pounds Of Food Collected, Sorted During Day Of Service Event

The following press release was distributed by Food For Neighbors

FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA — In the spirit of honoring the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., volunteers worked to help their local community by gathering and sorting food to fill food pantries in 50 local schools in Arlington, Fairfax, and Loudoun Counties. Many food pantries were literally bare as the new year began and Food For Neighbors mobilized 206 drivers to collect Red Bags full of groceries from 2,138 households to bring to their ten sorting sites. Among the 860 volunteers who dedicated their morning in service to the Food For Neighbors event which collected 29,650 pounds of food was Dranesville District Supervisor Jimmy Bierman, who worked at the Herndon site.

"It's always great to find service opportunities on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day weekend to honor his legacy,” Bierman said. “Food For Neighbors does so much in our community to help tackle real challenges with food insecurity. I'm always happy to help."

Kate Tressler, Event Coordinator at the Centreville site noted how the student volunteers helped make the sorting event successful by taking full ownership. Longtime student volunteer Ryan Croft mentioned how serving with classmates was fun as well as important to his community. “We make sure our friends have food to eat.”

Ryan worked alongside his brother Dylan who shared, “I love to see the happy faces when our friends get to take the food home.”

The Kiwanis Club of Tysons, who is a Food For Neighbors Silver Level Community Partner, brought several volunteers including Nicole McDermott who noted, “It is meaningful to Kiwanis members to support teens in health, food scarcity, and leadership.” Beyond helping at the sorting event, The Kiwanis Club Is holding their annual Kiwanis Polar Dip at Lake Anne Village Plaza in Reston on Saturday, February 1. Proceeds will benefit Food For Neighbors, as well as several other worthy groups.

Jeffrey Wolff from The Kiwanis Club of Tysons said, "The Kiwanis Club of Tysons is thrilled once again to be partnering with Food for Neighbors in its effort to combat food insecurity, particularly amongst children within Northern Virginia through our 2nd Annual Kiwanis Polar Dip event at Lake Anne on February 1st, 2025. Food insecurity remains a forefront issue for our club and directly aligns with the mission of Kiwanis International ... improving the world one child and one community at a time."

On this day of service, community members working together to help their neighbors was on full display. “We are so grateful to all our volunteers and to our partners like The Kiwanis Club who have helped us grow. When Food For Neighbors began back in 2016, we started with just two schools,” said Karen Joseph, Founder and Executive Director. “But the community began hearing about us, and people wanted to get involved, and we grew and grew. We’ve recently welcomed three new schools, and are now serving over 8500 students at 50 schools in Northern Virginia. We also just opened our tenth sorting site at Katherine Johnson Middle School in Fairfax.”

Food For Neighbors makes service easy. “With Food For Neighbors, it’s not hard to give back to the community,” said Centreville High School junior Ryan Croft. “I love seeing how much food we can collect and we try to top it each time. We can always use more Red Bag Donors.”

Food For Neighbors invites you to make a difference by registering as a Red Bag donor. The group will leave a “red bag” with the grocery list and collection dates on your doorstep, send a reminder when it’s time to shop, and pick up the donations from your home. It’s that easy! To learn more, visit https://www.foodforneighbors.org/get-involved/.