Hampton Virginia Store Managers Surprise and Delight Local Families

Hampton Virginia Store Managers Surprise and Delight Local Families

The Mobile Food Pantry Program at Virginia Peninsula Food Bank delivers and distributes fresh, healthy food directly into communities that need it most. Communities like the Tide Mill Farms neighborhood in Hampton, Va., where families often experience food scarcity and are lacking access to nutritious vegetables and meat. This was the location of a mobile pantry distribution last Thursday.

Each month, Virginia Peninsula staff and a host of community volunteers from a neighboring church mobilize to set up a food distribution that serves 100 families at Luther W. Machen Elementary School, located in the heart of the Tide Mill Farm neighborhood.

This past Thursday, families entered the school gym awaiting their time to shop the plentiful produce, assorted breads, snack items and meat. After their shopping carts had been filled with their personal selections, they arrived at the end of the line where a surprise awaited them. Amber Schrum, John Hurst and Ron Hurst, all area Food Lion store managers, greeted them with a $20 Food Lion gift card.

A $20 Food Lion gift card was a timely surprise and contribution that will help meet the needs of many households that were represented there that day. Due to the recent partial federal government shutdown, individuals receiving nutrition assistance through SNAP received their benefits early in February. Food Lion knows that this will put some people in a difficult position to make decisions about how to feed their family when the benefits run out early, well before the end of the month.

Food Lion donated $10,000 in Food Lion gift cards to Virginia Peninsula Food Bank to support additional mobile pantry distributions for SNAP beneficiaries this month.

“We thank Food Lion for the overwhelming generosity to help our neighbors in need. I know they were so grateful for the gift cards. What a wonderful surprise.” said Donna Tinge with the Virginia Peninsula Food Bank.

Each person there that day expressed thanks and gratitude to their neighboring Food Lion managers, and the food bank staff that graciously serve them each month.