Roxanne Rice is executive director of Food for Others, the largest direct distributor of free food to people in Northern Virginia. The organization gets food to the poor through their own warehouse in Merrifield as well as about 30 community organizations and a food program run by the Department of Agriculture. They also distribute food at certain street corners in Northern Virginia, where those who line up are asked only how many people are in their families.
Has the demand for food increased with the economic downturn?
The challenge we are facing right now is the challenge that is dominating the news these days. We used to average about 50 families a day [seeking food at the warehouse] and now it is 90 a day. And we had a 45 percent increase in demand for food this October compared to last October.
Where does your food supply come from?
We pick up food every day at grocery stores that are discarding things that are going out of date, such as day-old bread. We have our vehicles go out every day to pick it up. We get a lot of food through food drives by churches, civic groups, businesses and the Boy Scouts. During the summer we have volunteers go up to the Department of Agriculture’s research farm in Beltsville, Md., and bring back potatoes, squash, beans, whatever they are experimenting with up there. Just because they are experimenting doesn’t make it poisonous.
How much food to you distribute?
We distribute about 2 million pounds of food a year. People need it all year round, but people are very generous in November and December and that is when we get most of our food.
Is this mostly a volunteer-based group?
We have 6,000 people who do some kind of volunteer work with us, and the number of volunteer hours worked yearly is more than 20,000.
Are you looking for any new volunteers?
We are always in need of certain kinds of volunteers. We need people who are willing to distribute food at our street corner sites, to pick up food in the morning at grocery stores and to work at the front desk to do client intake.
