LINK supports Multi-faith food drive for Loudoun County

By Bob Ashdown
LINK Food Pantry Manager

On Saturday May 3, the Good Lord gave us a beautiful day for the Love Your Neighbor, Feed Your Neighbor grocery collection.  Twenty LINK volunteers, including eight teenagers from St. Thomas a Becket Catholic Church, worked at both the LINK Food Pantry and the Christ the Redeemer Catholic (CTR) basement accepting the donations from the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS), Sterling Park Ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and St. Matthew Episcopal Church. 

Carl V. was waiting as the first volunteers, Maddy and Stacy, from Thomas a Becket, arrived around 9:00 am.  Experienced packers, Ann and Andy Gibbons and Gabrielle O'Bryan, helped Carl oversee the sorting and shelving.  Andy also provided nutritious donuts to keep the gang going.  Two strong young men from Thomas a Becket drove up in a jeep -- they did a lot of heavy lifting as well as reaching those high places this short guy couldn't.  Heidi and Gary, two new LINK volunteers, pitched in as well.  Once it looked like the pantry was reaching saturation, Betty E. drove over to CTR to be our advanced scout, assessing whether we could move operations there a little earlier than planned.  Monica and her friend got there soon afterward to set things up for us. 

The multi-faith team unloaded food from three trucks, placing the incoming packages on and under tables for later sorting and shelving by the high school special needs classes.  Roberta B. was also there in spirit, with her memorial dogwood tree in full bloom over looking the operations.   

For the third year, the County Board of Supervisors offered its support in the form of a resolution, declaring May as Hunger Awareness Month in Loudoun County.

Some in the community have asked why May is selected for Hunger Awareness when food distribution efforts are performed all year long? The reason behind the focus during May is to support the upcoming summer requirements necessary to feed Loudouns' needy families.  Food pantries stock up in May because summer is also the time when children are home from school, unable to participate in the free lunch programs Loudoun County Public Schools provides.

All donations collected in Loudoun will benefit Loudoun County area food banks including: Seven Loaves (Middleburg), Loudoun Interfaith Relief, Catholic Charities (Leesburg) Messiah’s Market (Ashburn), Tree of Life Ministries (Purcelllville) and LINK (Sterling).

After thoughts:
This year congregations from 23 churches worked throughout Loudoun participating in mini-food collections, door-to-door campaigns, manning donation tables at local Giant stores and other activities  which climaxed on May 3rd,  the County food collection day.  All these activities and generosity of Loudoun residents helped to collect a record 88,000 lbs of food of which 13,000 lbs was distributed to the LINK Food Pantry.