Here to help: Meet some of the people who are getting food to the hungry

In normal times, one in six Charlottesville residents—nearly 8,000 people—lack adequate access to affordable, healthy food. That’s 6 percent higher than the statewide food insecurity rate. And with thousands of citizens newly unemployed due to COVID-19, our food insecurity numbers have significantly increased, exacerbating underlying disparities.

Dozens of area nonprofits have been working for years to fight this complex, systemic issue, which disproportionately affects people of color, and when the coronavirus left many more residents in need of food assistance, these groups redoubled their efforts. What follows is a glimpse of a few of the local individuals and organizations that are feeding their friends and neighbors in need.

PB&J Fund

When COVID-19 shut down city schools, many students were at risk of going hungry because they’d lost access to their free (or reduced-price) breakfasts and lunches. The PB&J Fund, which teaches students how to make healthy, affordable recipes at home with their families, stepped in immediately, organizing volunteers to pack and hand out bag lunches on March 15.

The following day, city schools began distributing grab-and-go meals—but only on weekdays. To feed children on the weekends, the PB&J Fund set up a delivery program, dropping off bags of groceries on the doorsteps of more than 300 families every Friday.

“They are primarily shelf-stable items, with a little bit of fresh produce,” mainly from locally owned grocery stores, food banks, and farmers, says the fund’s Executive Director Alex London-Gross. “We want to ensure that people have options.”

While programs like this have been necessary in Charlottesville “for years and years,” says London-Gross, they are especially crucial now. With household staples flying off the shelves, it has been difficult for low-income families to get to stores in time to purchase all they need, often due to their work schedules. Charlottesville Area Transit’s reduced schedules have made shopping even tougher for those without access to a car.

“We have kids [waiting] at the front door who know what time their bag is going to be delivered,” says London-Gross. “They’re so appreciative.”

The PB&J Fund will continue to deliver groceries through the end of August, but plans after that are up in the air, says London-Gross. If city schools reopen (in some capacity), it may pivot to assist other community organizations with their food relief needs. It may also begin teaching cooking classes again, but in a virtual format.

We are really looking forward to “getting back to the educational piece of our work,” says London-Gross.

Keevil & Keevil Grocery and Kitchen

When local chef Harrison Keevil had to close down his family’s store, Keevil & Keevil Grocery and Kitchen, back in March, he immediately thought of his Belmont neighbors. What if they lost their jobs? How were they going to eat?

Right away, he began leaving 15 free lunches every day in front of the eatery for anyone who was hungry, no questions asked. But he wanted to do more.

By April, Keevil had forged partnerships with multiple area organizations that serve vulnerable populations—including PACEM, Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville, The Arc of the Piedmont, and The Haven—to provide freshly prepared meals, using ingredients purchased directly from local farmers.

And over the past few weeks, Keevil’s hunger relief program—called #FeedVirginia—has expanded its partnerships into rural areas like Goochland, Keevil’s hometown.

Chef Harrison Keevil has distributed about 24,000 meals through his #FeedVirginia program. PC: John Robinson

“We work with our partners to determine how many meals they would like, and either we or volunteers deliver it, or someone comes to pick it up from that group” every Tuesday through Thursday, says Keevil. “And Tuesday through Friday, we’re still putting out free meals in front of the shop.”

One-hundred percent of profits from Keevil & Keevil’s regular food and catering sales go toward funding the program, in addition to GoFundMe donations. While this new business model hasn’t been easy to adopt, says Keevil, the store has been able to stay self-sufficient, and currently has enough funds to get through the next few months.

“This has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done professionally, but it’s also been the most rewarding,” he says. Before starting #FeedVirginia, “I hadn’t realized how lost I truly was. It has definitely reset me, and opened my eyes to why I love cooking and why I got into it in the first place—to take care of people [and] put smiles on people’s faces.”

The program has distributed about 24,000 meals to date—and has no plans of stopping anytime soon. “We will do whatever we can to keep this going [and] make sure we’re always there, especially for the Belmont community,” Keevil says. “We are here to stay.”

Local Food Hub

As soon as the University of Virginia shut its doors in mid-March, Portia Boggs, communications director for the Local Food Hub, knew that things were about to get “really bad” for area farmers, who rely heavily on wholesale sales to schools, restaurants, and other institutions.

Her worst fears were soon confirmed: Following closures all over the city and surrounding counties, farmers reported a more than 90 percent drop in sales. They weren’t sure how, or if, they were going to make it through the pandemic.

At the same time, “grocery store shelves were empty, and people were freaking out about whether or not they would be able to get enough to eat,” says Boggs.

To both help farmers and meet consumer demand, the Local Food Hub created a drive-thru market, held every Wednesday and Friday in the former Kmart parking lot on Hydraulic Road.

The Local Food Hub hosts drive-thru markets twice a week in the former Kmart parking lot on Hydraulic Road. PC: Supplied photo

Because customers place their orders online, “there’s absolutely no contact between anyone,” says Boggs. They just have to show up at their designated pick-up time and put a sign with their name in their front car window, and employees will put their order in their trunk.

The model has been very successful, bringing in hundreds of thousands dollars in sales to date for its 20 vendors. More drive-thru markets have since popped up around town.

“We’ve been completely blown away by the support from the community,” says Boggs. “So many of our vendors tell us that we either played a huge role in or were responsible for keeping them in business, and making it possible for them to survive.”

To further help families facing economic hardship, Local Food Hub expanded its preexisting food relief program, Fresh Farmacy, which currently provides locally grown produce to 600 low-income families every week.

While there is no set end date for either of the programs, Boggs hopes that “once things normalize a little bit more, people will remember the benefits of local food systems, [as well as] everyone having access to equitable food,” she says. We need to “continue to invest in that and prioritize that as a long-term solution, and not just an emergency response.”

Cultivate Charlottesville

For years, the Food Justice Network, City Schoolyard Garden, and the Urban Agriculture Collective have fought together to create a healthy and equitable food system in Charlottesville. To better achieve their mission and amplify their impact, the three organizations decided in April to come together as one: Cultivate Charlottesville.

Since the start of the pandemic, each of Cultivate Charlottesville’s programs has been working to provide emergency food security response, tapping into partnerships to expand current initiatives and create new ones, thanks to “a huge swell in interest and support not only from donors but individuals,” says Cultivate Charlottesville’s Executive Director Jeanette Abi-Nader.

Every week, the Urban Agriculture Collective, which works with public housing residents to grow fresh food, has hosted a free community market for families in need, distributing produce from its Sixth Street farm.

In collaboration with nonprofits Charlottesville Frontline Foods and Charlottesville Community Cares, the Food Justice Network has given out freshly prepared meals from local restaurants—particularly those run by people of color—to public and subsidized housing residents, as part of its efforts toward racial equity.

Food Justice Network associate Gabby Levet believes the pandemic has strengthened Cultivate Charlottesville’s partnerships, helping it to better respond to future community issues. PC: Marley Nichelle

During Charlottesville City Schools’ spring break, volunteers from City Schoolyard Garden and the Chris Long Foundation teamed up to deliver 4,000 meals from Pearl Island Catering and Mochiko Cville to students living in neighborhoods with high enrollments in the free and reduced-price meal program.

And as a collective, Cultivate Charlottesville has partnered with the local health department, plus other community organizations, to sponsor free COVID-19 testing in Black and Latino communities, which have been disproportionately impacted by the virus. It’s also worked to provide wraparound services, including groceries, medication, cleaning products, and PPE.

“Working with so many people across sectors and coming up with solutions in short spans of time…unlocks so much potential moving forward to respond to other community needs and broader issues that arise,” adds Charlottesville Food Justice Network associate Gabby Levet. “Those relationships will not be lost.”

However, these relief programs, among others, aren’t intended to become the “norm” for achieving food equity, says Abi-Nader. “We still want to develop principles and practices to build towards that longer-term food security,” she says, such as by securing more land for urban gardens. We want this to be “a part of what the community sees as necessary for being a healthy and better Charlottesville.”

Blue Ridge Area Food Bank

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank—which provides food assistance to 25 counties and eight cities in central and western Virginia—was faced with a big challenge. With thousands of residents out of a job, a lot more food needed to be distributed to its community partners, including food pantries, soup kitchens, and shelters. But BRAFB had a drastic reduction in volunteers, and needed to limit the amount of people allowed to work during a shift to 10.

Fortunately, it immediately received “a historic outpouring of support,” says Community Relations Manager Abena Foreman-Trice, “allowing us to spend more than $2.7 million in response to the crisis, with nearly all of that going toward food purchases.” When the food bank put out a call for healthy, low-risk volunteers, around 700 people signed up to give out food to their neighbors in need.

A volunteer from the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank hands out bags filled with household staples. PC: Supplied photo

Thanks to this substantial backing from the community, BRAFB has been able to keep nearly all of its partner food pantries open. Using low and no-touch food distribution practices, like curbside pickup and home deliveries, it has safely served 15 percent more people than it did at this time in 2019—roughly 115,000 in May alone, according to its latest stats.

In collaboration with community partners, BRAFB has increased its outreach efforts to vulnerable populations. With the help of volunteers from the Jefferson Area Board for Aging, it has distributed and delivered food boxes to senior citizens in need in Charlottesville and surrounding counties.

“We can’t predict when things will go back to the way they were before COVID-19….our response to the pandemic could go on for many more months,” says Foreman-Trice. Nonetheless, “we can remain ready to help individuals and families when they need us.”

Food web: Local farms find new ways to connect with customers

At this point in the season, farmers have planted potatoes and strawberries. They’ve sown radishes, carrots, beets, and kohlrabi. They’ve transplanted broccoli and onions from interior pots to outdoor beds, and any day now, they’ll put in the warmer-weather crops like corn and peppers.

But as the COVID-19 pandemic spreads throughout Virginia, Governor Ralph Northam’s stay-at-home order has shut down farmers’ markets and restaurants, and local farmers have had to rethink how to get food to their customers…and how to maintain their income to ensure there’s a harvest next year.

“At this time of year, we have a lot invested in the ground and not a lot of cash on hand,” says Jim Marzluff of Sweet Greens Farm in Scottsville. “Those first few markets are really important to us.”

More than half of Sweet Greens’ revenue comes from local farmers’ markets. “It’s such a good way to sell produce in this area,” says Marzluff.

That number’s even higher—95 percent—for Whisper Hill Farm, also in Scottsville. “We’re going to have tons of produce,” says farmer Holly Hammond.

Hammond and Marzluff plan to put what they’d normally sell at the market into community supported agriculture shares. Both farms had moved away from the CSA model in recent years, but right now, it seems like the best option to feed customers and financially sustain the farms.

Though they understand the dire importance of practicing social distancing, farmers, who already adhere to very strict food safety standards, are frustrated by the new rules. Lee O’Neill of Radical Roots Farm says that markets could likely observe even stricter measures than grocery stores—limiting how many people are in the space at once, allowing only farmers to touch the goods—and so she wonders why the markets are not also considered essential.

To help fill the gap, Local Food Hub is offering a drive-up, no-contact micro-market. Customers can go to the organization’s website to order locally produced fruits and veggies, milk, eggs, cheese, meats, and more. At the pickup location, LFH employees and farmers place the bagged order in the customer’s trunk.

And starting Saturday, April 11, the City Market will switch to a “City Market To-Go” model, operating from 8am to noon on Saturdays until further notice. Customers can sign up for an account, place an order online, and choose a 30-minute pickup window. During that time, they’ll be able to pick up their bag from Pen Park.

Farmers say there’s also been increased interest in CSA programs from customers over the past two weeks, particularly from those who are anxious that there might eventually be a food shortage.

Bellair Farm, located just outside of Charlottesville, is perhaps unique in that its business model is based almost entirely around a CSA program, which farm manager Michelle McKenzie says could provide enough produce for 700 families for its 22-week duration. (A half share, enough for the average-size family, costs $390 for the season, about $17 per week.) While Bellair won’t have to adapt its business much, it will stop its market-style CSA pickup and switch to pre-packaged bags that customers can retrieve quickly.

Radical Roots will also offer a few CSA shares this year to make up for its lost market business, and it’s participating in Local Food Hub’s micro-market, but O’Neill expects her farm’s “saving grace” will be its wholesale business with area groceries like Feast!, Integral Yoga, and Whole Foods. There’s no guarantee, though, that customers on tight pandemic budgets will opt for the slightly more expensive, locally grown organic tomato, rather than the cheaper, corporate farm-grown one. “Usually we can’t produce enough” for the stores, says O’Neill, but she imagines this year could be different.

Since fall 2019, when this photo was taken, the Urban Agriculture Collective of Charlottesville, which grows and distributes produce to public and subsidized housing communities, has lost more than 80 percent of its planting-bed space. Photo by Zack Wajsgras

While most area farms work out how to distribute their bounties, one farm located in the heart of Charlottesville worries it won’t have enough food for its consumers’ needs.

The Urban Agriculture Collective of Charlottesville offers city residents the opportunity to collaboratively grow and harvest organic produce that is then distributed at no cost to public and subsidized housing communities, “people who might not otherwise have access to fresh produce,” says Richard Morris, farm and foodroots program director at UACC.

During the 2019 season, UACC’s three gardens, located at the Friendship Court, South First Street, and Sixth Street housing developments, had a combined 25,000 square feet of vegetable-bed space. But with the Friendship Court and South First Street spots slated for redevelopment, UACC was only able to plant at Sixth Street—4,400 square feet of bed space—for the 2020 season.

“We’re down, but not out,” says Morris. With less than one-fifth of its previous planting area to work with, he says they’ve employed some intensive growing techniques, such as vertical planting.

As unemployment rates soar, Morris expects that those members of our community who are already food insecure (about 17 percent of the city’s population) will have greater demand for produce…and that more of our neighbors will become food insecure in the coming months.

He hopes that other, larger farms and distributors with excess produce might donate it to the UACC’s new Harvest a Bushel for the Community program.

Overall, farmers say they want this moment to help the community understand the reliability, and thus the importance, of local food. It’s part of their mission, after all, to feed their neighbors.

“For me, having this very clear, outlined mission of what my role is in this crisis has brought me more peace than anything else in this time,” says McKenzie. “Knowing that I’ve got a job to do, and my job is to grow food, safely. That’s what I keep returning to.”

Dining decline

Farms that supply to area restaurants, and not just individual customers, face enormous challenges, too. As restaurants have either closed completely or switched to carry-out and delivery models, they’re not cooking as much, which means placing fewer, if any, orders with small farms.

Around half of Free Union Grass Farm’s business comes from local restaurants. This year, farmer Joel Slezak planned to raise 2,500 ducks and sell 90 percent of them to local restaurants. But a few weeks ago, orders from restaurants “disappeared overnight,” and Slezak canceled his duckling order. Instead, he’ll raise chickens and laying hens, whose meat and eggs, respectively, are easier to sell to home cooks via the farm’s website. Slezak says he’s had increased interest from individual customers, and despite the loss of his restaurant clientele, business is booming. He does worry that at some point, individual customers will run out of money and not be able to afford local food prices, which tend to be higher than those at grocery stores.

Ara Avagyan of Double H Farm has some worries, too. From December through May, his farm relies entirely on restaurants for its income. “That’s just enough” for the Avagyan family to pay the bills and keep the lights on. He continues providing to restaurants throughout the spring, summer, and fall, but he relies on farmers market sales of leafy greens, eggs, pork, and more, for the money to feed his livestock: dozens of cows, hundreds of pigs and chickens. Double H has pivoted to direct-to-customer sales through its website, and is selling to small groceries like Integral Yoga, but Avagyan says only time will tell if that model will be successful.

This article was updated Wednesday, April 8 to include information about the City Market To-Go, announced April 7.