Food Worries Increasing in the Fredericksburg Area
50,000 Served in the Past Year. And with Rising Inflation and Federal Program Cuts, the Problem, and the Need, are Getting Worse
By Hank Silverberg
ADVANCE CORRESPONDENT
Food Insecurity—defined as “the inability to provide proper nutrition three times a day, or a struggle to have healthy food or enough food”—is on the rise in the Fredericksburg area. At last count, according the Dan Maher at the Fredericksburg Area Food Bank, 40,000 people—10 percent of the region’s population—were struggling to put enough food on the table to sustain them.
Maher, Food Bank president and CEO, said that in the past year his agency served more than 50,000 people, providing them with food for 7.5 million meals—a small increase over the year before which Maher attributed in part to the two-and-a-half month federal government shutdown from mid-February to the end of April 2026.
According to Maher, rising inflation over the past two years has brought in many people to the Food Bank who had previously been getting by, but now find it difficult to provide enough food for their families.
Children make up about 40 percent of the people needing food help, he said, while another 15 percent to 20 percent are senior citizens who get assistance from the Commodity Supplemental Food Program run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“Inflation has eroded their finances,” Maher said. “Inflation pushes them over the edge.”
That includes people like Denise Uhrig of Culpepper, who needed food assistance five years ago after her husband lost his job. Now she delivers food to others across the region as a volunteer.
“Most of the people are embarrassed that they need help,” Uhrig said—but nonetheless grateful.
The recent spike in gas prices is significant challenges for a lot of people, Uhrig added, which is one of the reasons she recently enlisted her daughter-in-law and mother to help deliver food packages.
“Transportation is a big problem, especially for senior citizens,” she said.
The local food bank serves the City of Fredericksburg, Stafford, Spotsylvania, Caroline, King George, and Orange counties. The organization’s $5.5 million annual budget pays for two warehouses, several food pantries, a fleet of trucks, and a 30 person staff.
Maher said that while the government shutdown earlier this year prompted many more people to seek help for the first time at one of the pantries, the stigma of asking for food assistance likely kept some people who needed it away.
Another concern, he said, is the difficulty of providing enough meals in the summer months when children are out of school and no longer getting their subsidized school breakfasts and lunches.
Even though her husband is now back at work, Uhrig said her family still sometimes needs food assistance, though she often gives away what she gets from the Food Bank to friends and neighbors in greater need.
Maher noted that there have been significant cutbacks from the Trump administration in federal programs providing direct food assistance, mainly surplus food commodities, which is forcing the local food bank to purchase more food, further draining their already limited budget.
The Food Bank receives the majority of the food they distribute in the form of private donations from local retailers, but those retailers, too, are now pressed by inflation, meaning their contributions will likely go down.
Meanwhile, the Food Bank tries to steer clients to the Fredericksburg Food Co-op or local farmers’ markets which will double the value of benefits provided to some of those in need through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, more commonly referred to as SNAP, or food stamps.
Nationwide, more than 3.5 million beneficiaries of SNAP lost those benefits between July of 2025 and February of 2026.
And the situation could get worse. There’s a proposal in Congress to cut more than $200 million nationwide from SNAP and from the nutrition program for Women, Infants and Children, or WIC.
The local food bank has been ramping up its donation program, asking the public for contributions to make up for the lost federal aid. If you would like to donate, go to THIS LINK.