Nearly one-quarter of the 6,600 people living in Charles City County fill their plates each month with food from the county’s food pantry.
There is no grocery store in the rural Central Virginia county, so residents have limited access to fresh items like meat and vegetables.
A year ago, the Charles City County Board of Supervisors and the county’s Community Foundation began distributing free food each Tuesday at a new $1.5 million community center built to house the pantry. More than 600 households in the community have come to rely on the service monthly.
Charles City supervisor Michael Hill attended a celebration Thursday marking the pantry’s one-year anniversary.
“It was definitely a challenge. There were a lot of people in the county that were hungry at night,” Hill said. “There was a great need for it.”
As the price of groceries has risen during the past two years, 22% more people in Central Virginia consider themselves food insecure, according to Richmond-based hunger relief organization Feed More.
Supervisor Byron Adkins Sr., who also serves as a member of the Charles City Community Foundation, said because the county had been designated a food desert, county leaders wanted to do “everything possible to make sure the nutritional needs of each and every family in the community [were] met.”
Every week, volunteers help run drive-thru food distribution at the pantry, and pass out about 175 boxes filled with meat, vegetables, fruit, bread and other packaged goods to people stopping by in their cars. They also make deliveries to residents who are unable to drive to the pantry.
Since there are no grocery stores within the county, food pantry coordinator Paula “Ge’Nee” Cotman travels to 13 different stores in neighboring counties to collect the food she helps provide to the community.
“We’re supplying them every week with a supplement to help carry them through, so they won’t go hungry,” Cotman said. “It’s the best that you could do. Be a servant.”
County administrator Michelle Johnson helped establish the food pantry. She said: “The people of Charles City have united on behalf of their neighbors, coming together to fight hunger.”
Disclosure: Michelle Johnson is a member of VPM's Community Advisory Board.
