Edible Blue Ridge Winter 2022

Giving Back LISA ARCHER Combating food insecurity in our region WORDS & PHOTOS

I Into the cardboard box goes a can of peas. As it moves down a con veyor belt, many hands pass over it, adding boxed mashed potatoes, a jar of peanut butter, tinned salmon and pinto beans. One in six children is hungry in southwest Virginia. Elbow macaroni gently shakes out a two-step rhythm as it is tucked into place. The box moves down the belt. One in eight residents in southwest Virginia faces hunger. Beef stew, two 15-oz cans of sweet potatoes and a carton of shelf stable milk are added as the box approaches the finish line, weigh ing in at a little over twenty pounds. It is taped shut, loaded onto a wooden pallet and moved via pallet jack to a 70,000 square foot warehouse, where it, along with 1,500 other boxes, will be trans ported via truck to an elderly housing community. As we plan holiday dinners with heritage birds, gooey cheeses and cinnamon stick-adorned drinks, some of our neighbors are struggling.

Licking the whipped cream off the whisk as a child, burning your first pie. Burning your second. Peeling potatoes with your mom in the kitchen. Hurriedly drying the dishes so you can join a board game or play with a new toy. For some, though, the holidays mean memories they’d rather leave behind. “Locating fresh, local food is harder. The cost of living always increases [utility bills]. People are more prone to illness. There are still seasonal jobs in our communities and so the challenges for food-insecure families and individuals increase during the winter months,” says Pamela Irvine, Director and CEO of Feeding South west Virginia (FSWVA), a non-profit that fights food insecurity across 26 counties in the region. FSWVA, an affiliate of Feeding America, does more than just collect canned food. It is a multifaceted organization that serves its communities through a variety of programs, including providing food-insecure seniors with boxes of groceries. The majority of the work they do is with the help of volunteers and some 300 partner organizations. They source, transport and hand out food across 12,000 square miles out of two main hubs, one in Salem and one in Abingdon. They also educate the public, offer training programs to unemployed individuals, respond to emergencies and natural

140,000 residents are hungry.

For many of us, the holidays are glittered with memories of food.

28 | edible blue ridge WINTER 2022