Smiles, Dignity, and Need Motivate Volunteers
The Fredericksburg Regional Food Bank's toys and turkey distribution reached nearly a 1,000 families on Saturday.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
By 9:30 Saturday morning, cars were already wrapping at the staging area off Lee Hill Drive for the annual give-away of toys and turkeys for Christmas. Nearly 1,000 families pre-registered for the event which started distributions at 10:00 am.
The high turnout matched what the Fredericksburg Area Food Bank has been seeing since COVID — more people struggling, more needs to meet, and more people willing to help their neighbor.
Shannon Kemp works at the Food Bank and gave her Saturday to distribute toys.
“It’s humbling to see the need,” she said. “You don’t leave [this event, however] without feeling you were fed, too.”
The sheer number of people turning to the Food Bank is both humbling and concerning. “During COVID we were [serving]” about 38,000, Kemp told the Advance.
“Now,” she continued, “we’re at” about 45,000.
That number is worrying, but there’s not a lot of mystery behind why it’s growing.
A single mom of three kids told the Advance that while things are tough in general, “food prices are making it worse.” And those prices are what drove her to show up Saturday morning. It was her first time coming to this particular event.
That theme resonated throughout the morning.
A transportation coordinator for a preschool in our region was coming to the give-away for the first time. “Everything just costs a lot,” she said. It was also her first time coming.
Another family said that “December’s hard,” and appreciative for the give-away. “It helps us get through,” the mother said.
If inflation was the connective tissue that everyone shared, the individual stories were a reminder of the challenges families are facing.
“I’m a survivor of domestic violence,” said one woman with her two children. “I get no child support, and I live in King George.”
It was her first visit to the event, which she learned about through the Love Thy Neighbor Food Pantry.
These were just a few of the people who received what Dan Maher, CEO and president of the Fredericksburg Regional Food Bank, estimated to be 83,000 meals on Saturday.
Food Shouldn’t Be a Choice
Norman Schohn also works at the food bank, where he writes grants for the organization. He spends most of his days behind a computer screen and doesn’t usually get to see the impact his work has. Volunteering on Saturday, he said, “it’s good to see the faces, kids smiling.”
One smile in particular lit up the faces of everyone working the toy line. As cars pulled through, one volunteer called out the numbers and genders of children in the family, while another volunteer collected an appropriate gift from the boxes of toys.
A 2-year-old boy was resting in his father’s lap as their car pulled to the front of the line. A volunteer collected a stuffed Bluey — a popular Australian children’s TV show character — and placed it in his hands.
“I wish I had a camera to capture that smile,” the volunteer said.
“Giving out toys is my favorite,” said Latifa Lee, who works at the food bank. The toys Lee loves to distribute and that put smiles on hundreds of faces were provided by private collection drives that businesses or organizations conducted for the food bank, and excess toys from Toys for Tots and Blue Christmas, said Maher.
Those moments of joy were tempered by the reality of the struggles that rolled through with every car.
“We waste so much food” in this country said Latifa Lee, who works at the Food Bank. No one, she said, should go hungry.
Kemp put a finer point on it. “Food,” she said, “shouldn’t be choice.”
It Takes a Lot of Muscle to Restore Dignity
To pull off an event like this takes not only a lot of food and toy contributions, it also takes a lot of muscle.
Food bank employees like Kemp, Lee, and Schohn volunteered their time to make the day go smoothly. But they were hardly alone.
According to Maher there were about 110 people who turned out on Saturday to deliver food and toys to Fredericksburg “neighbors.”
Those helping out included Mayor Kerry Devine, who was delivering toys to cars as they pulled through.
The use of the word neighbors to describe those who turned out for toys and turkeys is intentional.
Kemp said that despite the rising numbers of people and the growing realization that inflation is driving the need, there is still a stigma that people feel when they reach out for help.
“People are still breaking down” the embarrassment they may feel, Kemp said. “We want give that dignity back.”
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