RICHMOND, Va. — As winter break begins for Richmond Public Schools, the community rallied to support families in need at the district's first Holiday Harvest Food Distribution event on Saturday.
Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School was bustling as nearly 100 teachers and staff volunteered as families picked up food.
Henderson Middle School Principal Allen Vernon said the event, which aims to provide two weeks of fresh food for 400 pre-selected families over the break, "embodies the good of our community to the core of what we stand for as educators."
The school system collaborated with Lulus Local Food and Feed More to organize the distribution. The organizations work to address food insecurity for families during what can be a challenging time of year.
"It's for those that might need a little assistance just kind of getting through the holidays," David Waidelich with Feed More said.
Waidelich noted that the demand for assistance is particularly high this year in Central Virginia, partly due to the discontinuation of pandemic-related benefits for some families. He said the food bank is operating at what they consider to be "peak pandemic levels when it comes to need."
"We've stabilized is what it looks like," Waidelich explained. "But what we really want is for that food instability to start coming back down."
Volunteers like Vernon are happy to help students because they know the work doesn’t just stop when their doors are closed.
“It’s great we have a community that is willing to step up," Vernon said. "It's one thing to sit around the table and talk about it. But it means a whole lot more that folks want to be solution-oriented and to find a way to provide and fill those gaps that the families do not have."
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