The Need Is So Great
The greater Fredericksburg region came together on Saturday to help some 1,000 families facing food insecurity.
Editor’s Note: Food insecurity is a major concern in our region. We’re honored to shine a light on the extraordinary efforts of the Fredericksburg Regional Food Bank, its partners, and the volunteers who showed up yesterday for the annual Turkeys and Toys event. Food insecurity is a year-round issue, however. Please consider volunteering or donating to the FRFB in 2024. And if you need help, reach out to FRFB.
by Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
We often talk about need in terms of cold numbers. The human cost of hunger was measured in more-concrete terms on Saturday - cars.
Starting at 5 a.m., vehicles filled with families lined up at Virginia Credit Union Stadium for the annual Turkey and Toys event put on by the Fredericksburg Regional Food Bank, and sponsored by Davis Defense Group.
By 10 a.m., Carl D. Silver Parkway had become a parking lot more than a half-mile long, filled with people sitting in their cars awaiting their turn to receive the meals and toys gathered for the event.
"Each of the three years we have held this event, the number of families seeking assistance has grown and the volume of food and toys required to serve them has increased," said Dan Maher, President & CEO of the Fredericksburg Regional Food Bank.
On Saturday, some 1,000 families waited as the FRFB distributed enough food for 65,000 meals.
it is indeed humbling to see the tremendous need for our services. A major event like this is a reminder to all of us associated with the Food Bank of how vital our daily service to the community is.
- Dan Maher, president of the Fredericksburg Regional Food Bank
Slated to end at 2 p.m., there were so many cars that the last in line did not receive what they came for until 3:30 PM.
“Around 12:30 p.m.,” Maher told FXBG Advance, “we had to start encouraging families waiting in line to recognize they may not receive any items from the distribution because the line ahead of them was still several hundred cars long.”
Every car was served, but not before all the food supplies were exhausted. An indeterminate number of people toward the end of the line received toys, but no food outlays.
Not Just the Holidays
The annual growth in people coming to the Turkeys and Toys event tracks with the growing number of people annually who avail themselves of FRFB’s services.
Over the course of Maher’s tenure, the demand for services has been steadily moving up. COVID certainly had a lot to do with that, but it’s far from the only issue. Inflation, soaring housing costs, and crippling student loan debt are also pushing families even in middle-class homes to seek assistance meeting their basic nutritional needs.
Meeting these demands involves more than providing food. An event hosted by FRFB in June and covered by the Advance focused on drying up COVID emergency funds, the difficulties of transporting and storing food, and the large number of families who have access to but are not using SNAP to supplement their nutritional needs. As many as 3 out of every 4 eligible families do not receive the benefits they’re qualified to receive.
Currently, about 1 in 10 Virginians - roughly 850,000 people - receive SNAP benefits. That means there are about 2.5 million more people who qualify but don’t receive benefits.
Do you qualify for SNAP? This simple test at Benefits.gov will tell you.
"We are grateful to have the privilege of serving so many in a single day,” said Maher, “and are grateful to the volunteers and donors who make the event possible, but it is indeed humbling to see the tremendous need for our services. A major event like this is a reminder to all of us associated with the Food Bank of how vital our daily service to the community is."
You can help this season, and throughout the year
FXBG Advance readers are generous people. We encourage you to explore the many ways that you can assist the FRFB this season and throughout the year.
Time, of course, is precious, and if you’re not able to assist the FRFB in person, there are many ways that you can help through donations, giving societies, and campaigns for good.
Most important, if you are in need of nutritional support, know that the FRFB is there to make it easy for you to secure the help you require.
Local Obituaries
To view local obituaries or to send a note to family and loved ones, please visit our website at the link that follows.
Support Local Journalism
Send your thoughts, questions and story ideas to adele@fxbgadvance.com!
The FXBG Advance is off and running, but we can’t do this without your help. You can support local journalism here in Fredericksburg by donating $8 a month. Your dollars will go toward hiring journalists so that we can broaden our reach and strengthen our coverage.
The content is now, and will continue to be, free.
Help us bring aboard the journalists who will elevate our coverage and strengthen the community we all share.
Consider joining for $8 monthly, $80 yearly, or becoming a supporting member for $200 or a Founding Member for $500.
Thank you for reading and supporting FXBG Advance.
-Martin Davis, Editor
I'm not a particularly good person. Truth be told, not sure I ever was.
I remember volunteering for the rescue squad as a young man, or working as a deputy - I'd be sitting there waiting for something to happen. Wanting it too. Shame on me, at a certain level, wishing it.
Not because I wished ill on others; just that I was an adrenalin junkie, looking for excitement. Wanting to be the hero, there to save the day. It gave me meaning, purpose, comradery with like minded souls. And there was more than one of us. We'd share tales of our adventures, the good we'd done, the risks we'd taken. The fact we were there to tell it, let everyone know to a degree, it was a story with a happy ending. At least for me.
As I got older, and more responsible for things, I was happier when a shift went by, and NOTHING happened. Again, to a degree, selfishly. But also, to a degree, more maturely. Because I'd come to realize a truth.
The best emergencies are the ones that don't happen. The car whose brakes don't give out, the driver who isn't drunk, the house that doesn't catch on fire, the depression treated before the suicide. All better outcomes.
That's a better way. Doesn't make as good a TV movie, or tale that an adventurer can later spin about vicariously being present during someone else's worst moments - even when "helping", but overall - better.
So when I see Mr Kenney's well meaning column the other day, or this more factual one this morning of the need, and the good work being done to address it - I get it. And to a seriously intended extent, I wish them, and all of those helping, well and congratulations. I'll often still join them, in my own way.
I remember feeling similarly back home, when the annual column would come out talking about RAM in the coalfields. Ever heard of it? Remote access medical care, nice acronym. Easy to remember. Good people volunteering to bring things like dental care or minimal healthcare once a year to the needy. Those folks would wait in line too for things like false teeth so they could eat their food, or to have a tooth removed so they didn't scream in pain as they did.
The work was good, the people grateful.
But when I do, I find I cannot help but want to apply that wisdom that I found over the years. And thus feel the need to ask questions which I know break the mood, but still are worth asking.
As worthy as this work is, wouldn't it be better if it were LESS needed? Isn't that, shouldn't THAT be the better system?
Isn't there a better way?
If I take Mr Davis's numbers correctly (which I have no reason to doubt), 1/10th of our fellow citizens is receiving food assistance. Another 30% need it but are not receiving it; either thru choice, pride, or ignorance. Which means 4 out of 10 Virginians live with food insecurity.
40%.........
More than 1 out of every 3 people you meet in this state will have times when they are not sure if they can put food on the table. If it were half of that, wouldn't it still be an outrage?
So by all means, give and help as you can. Not only here though. Vote for those looking to enact policies which improve those numbers. The status quo isn't working.
Mr Kenney will proclaim from the mountain tops that Tara Durant is "nice". That Rob Wittman is "great". And Trump is just misunderstood by the mean old leftists* (*-defined as anyone not bowing to his party's kult god).
Yeah, maybe. If you say so, bud.
All I know is people waiting hours on end in line in cars (the ones lucky enough to have cars), like scenes from Soviet Russia, is hardly evidence that the current system is working.
We don't just live in a Tale of Two Cities, but one of two worlds.
Side by side, and rarely the twain does meet. Moving farther away with every day. Only seeing each other on holidays, while one bends their knees in hope of the other's indulgences. The other feeling so good about themselves, once it is done.
But wouldn't the best way be if next year, there were fewer cars that felt the need to be in line? And the next year, fewer still?
So yes, do the needed work of feeding folks for today. Please.
But vote and work so next year, your generosity is not as needed. Other countries do a better job of meeting the needs of their citizens systematically, without shame. Societies that see tending basic needs as promoting the general welfare, as we claim is the most basic purpose of our society.
We've tried the Republican way of Mr Kenney, Trump, Youngkin, and Wittman. It isn't working.
Else why was the line of cars so long?
You've taken the step of going to help those in need yesterday. Good for you. Take the extra steps to fix the underlying cause. Because the best emergencies are the ones that never happen.
Merry Christmas.
What a wonderful and sad story. The loss of pandemic funding has many families in hard places.