Loudoun Hunger Relief

Goal: $60,000.00

Specific Need

Thank you for visiting our page!
Loudoun Hunger Relief (LHR) expanded in 2023 to become a Community Services Center, anchored by our full choice emergency grocery Market. Three partner nonprofits are now in the building with us, with other agencies offering their services onsite regularly. It's easier to get food, and it's easier to get the other supports people need in one location. Now, LHR wants to be better for our Sterling community. It's time for LHR's services to move out of Sterling parking lots and into a permanent indoor location. You can help today!

Loudoun Hunger Relief is the largest and oldest emergency food pantry in Loudoun County, serving the community since 1991. Right now, we're serving an average of 800 families each week through direct pantry services--up 30% from last year. Last year, LHR distributed 2.4 million pounds of food to help our neighbors in need. This year, we're on track to distribute even more. Loudoun Hunger Relief serves as the connector between neighbors who need help and neighbors like you who want to help. We get food to those who need it right here in our own community.

You Can Help Today To Achieve A Permanent, Indoor Sterling Location!
About half of the 800 families LHR serves each week live in Sterling. For the past four years, we have been providing services in Sterling twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays in two different open air locations. About one hundred people wait in line each week at each location for pre-packed food that we are able to transport to the mobile markets. This food includes fresh produce, milk, eggs, frozen meats and other items, but families can't choose their own food. The other approximately 200 Sterling families who use LHR's services make the drive to Leesburg. We know we need to do better for our Sterling neighbors.

We need a permanent, indoor Sterling location. It's past time to get everyone out of lines in parking lots and offer an option for more choice in food selection. Your gift today will support the outfitting of a new Sterling location for Loudoun Hunger Relief. We have matching gifts totaling $30,000 waiting to be unlocked by your gift. Every dollar you give is worth two until we reach the $30,000 mark! If we raise $60,000 total, including our matches, a generous donor will provide another $5,000 match to help us reach $70,000!

What do you think of your grocery bill lately? Most of us are feeling the pinch, and it's worse for Loudouners living paycheck to paycheck--about 1 in every 5 Loudoun households (see https://www.unitedforalice.org/state-overview/Virginia).

At LHR, demand for our emergency grocery services is still increasing. We are serving more frequently and in more locations. Wages are not keeping pace with prices, and our neighbors need our help. For our neighbors who recieve SNAP benefits, the Covid associated emergency allotment that kept SNAP benefits a bit higher has ended, with the average Virginia household receiving about $200 less per month in SNAP benefits beginning in March 2023. This cut is driving more Loudoun families to seek LHR's assistance.

Here's What Our Neighbors Are Saying About LHR

“I try to say thank you every time I come; I try to make sure that everyone knows I’m very thankful for what they give me because it’s hard out here... It’s just hard.”

“Let’s put it this way,” she said, “Without Loudoun Hunger Relief, we wouldn’t eat. It’s that simple. I shouldn’t be in this situation, but I am,” she said. “I have a degree, I have a job, but I simply don’t make enough money to put food on the table. Almost all my money goes to my rent. It’s not a livable situation.”

“There are people all the way under the ground, okay? I mean, alive and under the ground. That's what it feels like. And you know, it's comforting to know that we have no money we have no nothing but we can come around to (the pantry) and get us a little bit of food. So I'm thankful.”

We want to be there for our community with adequate, nutritious food, and you can help us do it.

Mission

The mission of Loudoun Hunger Relief (LHR): We serve our neighbors in need with nutritious food, education and community partnerships.

LHR was formerly known as Loudoun Interfaith Relief.

Profile

During FY2023, Loudoun Hunger Relief (LHR) served over 14,000 Loudoun food-insecure residents directly. We also shared food with partner organizations. Through the year, we provided around 170,000 service encounters and about 2.4 million pounds of food, the equivalent of around 2 million meals, to our neighbors in need. LHR strives to maximize the impact of our operation through the efficient use of donations; in fact, $.96 of every contribution received by LHR goes to providing food to Loudoun County's hungry. Loudoun Hunger Relief is one of the few organizations to earn a perfect 100 rating from Charity Navigator--a rating above and beyond their highest 4 star rating (see https://www.charitynavigator.org/discover-charities/best-charities/highly-rated-charities/).

What We Do

An estimated 3.9% of Loudoun's 434,300 residents are food insecure, meaning that they sometimes or often don't know if they will have enough food (see https://map.feedingamerica.org/county/2020/overall/virginia/county/loudoun, and https://www.loudoun.gov/1913/Demographic-Estimates-Forecasts). That's about 18,000 of our neighbors, and 14,000 (or about 2.8% of Loudoun's overall population) are being served by Loudoun Hunger Relief. Our model has moved to weekly service to keep pace with the economic pressures. Families and individuals can come up to once per week to any Loudoun Hunger service site to pick up their groceries. At every service, we have fresh produce, frozen meats, milk, eggs and bakery. Other items, such as baby formula and food, diapers, personal hygiene are also available. Laundry products and some cleaning supplies are on hand once or twice per month.

Where We Serve

LHR has seven main grocery distribution centers: The main Leesburg pantry and warehouse location, a Mobile Market which travels to Sterling locations on Mondays and Thursdays each week (being replaced by a permanent indoor Market), and satellite pantries co-located at Healthworks for Northern Virginia in Leesburg, INOVA Community Health Clinic, the Loudoun campus of Northern Virginia Community College, the Loudoun View low-income senior housing complex in Sterling, and a pantry in Lucketts supplied by LHR and run by Lucketts based volunteers. We also continue to provide food for distribution by other partner organizations.

Who We Serve

Of the approximately 14,000 Loudoun County residents we directly served last year, about 36% are children under 18 and another 10% are senior adults. The working age adults we serve are employed currently, with some working more than one job. We are serving Loudoun's working families, who are struggling to make ends meet in our high cost county. In 2023, about 39% of the households we served had never needed assistance before.

How You Can Help

Please make a gift today! Your help will support LHR's new Sterling site to better serve our neighbors right where they live, with choices of nutritious food for their families.