Volunteer Loudoun Hosts Make a Difference Day

Volunteer Loudoun will once again host , on Saturday, Oct. 22, in support of food pantry. 

The project involves a month-long food drive in partnership with area schools, businesses, places of worship, and organizations. Food drive donations will be collected, weighed and sorted during a fun, festive event beginning at 10 a.m.

“It’s such a simple thing. There’s so little time involved and it’s really anybody can do and yet the impact is great,” said Volunteer Loudoun Liaison Claire Smith. “The impact is great. It may not sound like a lot to some people but it has an impact. All you have to do is bring an item, or a few items, from your cupboard. Typically, you don’t even have to go out and shop because many of these items people would already have on hand. So it really is a very small effort with a really big return.”

According to Smith, Make a Difference Day is a national event and is celebrated in a myriad of ways around the country. For a number of years, Loudoun Interfaith became the recipient of the donated items, tied together nicely, she said.

Last year alone, Make a Difference Day produced non-perishable food items for nearly 2,100 people, which was enough for about 18,000 meals. 

“Each year, we do in fact bring in more donated items,” Smith said. “I think it shows that the effort has grown.”

That’s great news for Director of Operations David Dwyer who said that within the last four years the numbers have gone up by 100 percent.

“Just last month, in September, we served 7100 people here,” Dwyer said, which equates to a little more than 1650 families. “Instead of our numbers going down, which we would hope they would do, they are growing about 20 to 25 percent every year. That’s kind of frightening.”

As a result, the supplies at Loudoun Interfaith are very low. Dwyer said Make a Difference Day is a huge food drive for the local pantry, which should stock the pantries well enough to get through until the holiday food starts coming in.

“We’re the only place in the world that doesn’t want to be in business but it just seems like the need is so immense and it just doesn’t go away,” Dwyer said. “There are so many people that don’t have jobs, that can’t have jobs. There are many people that come here that are not employable so the need will always be here in Loudoun County.”

Dwyer said that about six percent of the residents within Loudoun County are food secure, meaning they are not sure where their next meal is going to come from. Of six percent, 69 percent do not qualify for any government assistance, which Dwyer said is a staggering number.

“Out of every county I’ve researched it’s the highest number I’ve seen, much higher than Fairfax or any other surrounding county or any other county in Virginia,” he said. “What it has to do with is that the cost of living here is so high that if you can pay your mortgage and keep your lights on you’ve made too much to qualify.

“You just never know. It’s your neighbors, it’s your old friends, classmates. SO many of our clients used to be our donors,” Dwyer said. “It’s just amazing. But that’s what our community is about and that’s what this food drive is about.”

Non-perishable food items or gift cards to local grocery stores can be dropped off the Make a Difference Day event on Saturday, Oct. 21, at 452 South King Street, in Leesburg.

Volunteers are also needed to unload boxes of food donations from trucks on Oct. 21 from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information about how you can contribute to the success of Make a Difference Day contact volunteerloudoun@loudoun.gov or call 703-777-0505.