After 15 years of operations, Local Food Hub will close its doors at the end of 2024. While leaders at the food accessibility nonprofit work to wrap up administrative tasks throughout the rest of the year, LFH’s Fresh Farmacy program will stop deliveries this month.
Since 2009, LFH has worked with farmers in and around the Charlottesville community to increase access to locally grown, fresh produce. The organization and its programming have shifted and grown over time but have become unsustainable according to the nonprofit.
LFH expanded its offerings significantly in recent years, increasing programming during the pandemic, furthering support for the Black Farmers Directory, and launching the Eastern Food Hub Collaborative.
“Although saying goodbye is not what any of us would have wanted, we do so with joy in our hearts for the opportunity to have served a community we care so much about,” said LFH Executive Director Laryssa Smith via email. “We believe strongly that the positive impact we leave behind will be carried into the future through the work of other organizations committed to food sovereignty and support of local growers.”
Charlottesville has several nonprofits and organizations working to address food insecurity and justice, but with the closure of LFH, a number of programs unique to or operated by LFH may be ending.
“Losing an organization like Local Food Hub is unquestionably a huge loss for the community and of course hits our farmers and Fresh Farmacy recipients the hardest,” shared LFH Director of Development Lynsie Steele in a comment via email.
Fresh Farmacy—started by LFH and Blue Ridge Health District in 2015—provides households with limited resources and at risk for diet-related health problems with items from area farms and producers. The program gives Fresh Farmacy shares to patients with a “prescription,” supporting the initiative’s idea of food as medicine.
Recipients receive deliveries twice a month, with each dropoff including between six and nine items of fresh produce.
In 2020, deliveries for the Fresh Farmacy program increased 600 percent in order to address increased levels of food insecurity at the height of the pandemic. Last year, LFH distributed 40,000 pounds of local produce to 350 households through the Fresh Farmacy program.
Fresh Farmacy deliveries and programmatic operations will end on July 15 despite continued demand.
“Local Food Hub has in fact shared pertinent information with Fresh Farmacy recipients regarding other food equity nonprofits that offer similar programming to our Fresh Farmacy programming within the Charlottesville area,” said Steele.
For now, LFH is working to transfer programming to other organizations where possible and is calling on the community to continue to support local nonprofits.
The details are still unknown, but Steele said that “Local Food Hub is finalizing the details for Virginia Black Farmer Directory to be able to continue to live on after the closure of LFH.”