RICHMOND, Va. — East End Richmonders may soon have access to a new food pantry at the Annie Giles Community Center. City leaders are working to bring this much-needed resource to the area, which currently faces a food desert. The community center serves 40,000 prepared meals each month to East End residents and aims to expand its resources.
Councilwoman Ellen Robertson noted, “We see this as an opportunity to be community-based and put it in the neighborhood where it’s needed.”
Robertson is collaborating with the nonprofit Underground Kitchen Community First, which operates out of the center, to establish the food pantry. She added, “It’s not just a pantry; it’s a food hub where you have distribution, preparation, and education to go along with it.”
The city classifies this part of the East End as a food desert due to limited access to fresh food. Robertson explained that commercial grocery stores often hesitate to build in the area because they seek a median household income above $55,000, a threshold the community does not meet.
Micheal Sparks, director of UGK Community First, is leading the project and leveraging existing partnerships with organizations such as Virginia Commonwealth University, Feed More and Shalom Farms.
“I want to make sure families in Richmond can live and be empowered to feed their families, get their education and work a job for a living wage,” Sparks said.
The initial plan for the pantry is to provide boxes of fresh food tailored to the specific dietary needs of families. Each box will include recipes and a QR code linking to cooking videos and tips from the UGK Community First Chef.
“We want that food to go out with explanation and knowledge,” Sparks emphasized. “We’re going to teach these families how to stretch their dollars with the support of this pantry and help them support local farmers to get good food.”
The project is still in the early stages but has already received approval from Mayor Danny Avula.
“Long-term, people who have good nutrition have much better health outcomes,” said Avula. “Nutrition is a bedrock of health and well-being for communities. It has to be part of what we—as a city and as a community—invest in so that everyone has an opportunity for good health.”
The goal is to launch this project by the end of summer. Councilwoman Robertson encourages anyone interested in supporting the initiative to contact her.
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