Chesterfield Food Bank fills the void between 'poverty' and putting food on the table - Chesterfield Observer

Billy Piper hands Delia White a frozen turkey, which she won in a raffle drawing at the Chesterfield Food Bank on Dec. 13, as the nonprofit’s chief executive, Kim Piper Hill, looks on. PARKER MICHELS-BOYCE

Travis Wilson never imagined he’d be spending his Friday evening in a chilly warehouse off Route 10, waiting for a cart of groceries from a food bank.

Wilson worked for years in construction – manning a backhoe, as a drill master. Now he’s a full-time caregiver for his wife, who has multiple sclerosis. Nearly a decade ago, before the disease progressed, she researched, found Chesterfield Food Bank and would come with him. Now it’s just Wilson. He holds a book of crossword puzzles to work on while he waits.

“As she gets worse and worse, I’m doing all the cooking and taking care of her. There are times you get overwhelmed,” Wilson says. “If it wasn’t for the food bank, I don’t know how we’d make it.”

Wilson isn’t alone.

Tonight, 12 days before Christmas, the warehouse is relatively sparse – 135 families are waiting for food, but usually the Chesterfield Food Bank sees between 170 and 250 families on Friday nights, each leaving with a cart full of groceries worth a few hundred dollars. Thanksgiving week there were 280. And that’s just the Friday night distribution.

The food bank also distributes groceries on Saturdays, rotating distribution at four different county elementary schools each month. They partner with churches along the Jefferson Davis Highway corridor to cook hot meals five nights a week for motel residents and the homeless. They do meals in the summer for kids who qualify for free and reduced-price lunches during the school year. Already in 2019, they’ve given out over 2 million pounds of food.

Since opening as Gathering Grounds Ministry in 2010, the food bank has gone from feeding 40-70 people a week to serving more than 2,000. The organization serves as a locus for sustenance across the county, collecting food from multiple sources and putting it into the hands of people who need it. As Chesterfield’s poverty increased over the last decade, so too has demand for the food bank.

“It’s a basic need,” says CEO Kim Piper Hill, as she greets customers and thanks volunteers. “Food and shelter are the biggest things that everybody should be able to have.”

On a recent Friday night, Kim Piper Hill, the Chesterfield Food Bank’s chief executive, welcomes those waiting for food distribution to begin and explains the additional services available. PARKER MICHELS-BOYCE

And, when it comes to food, her organization’s impact is hard to overstate. Hill estimates that the food bank serves 60%-75% of all hunger needs in Chesterfield. “They’re definitely one of the most important nonprofits in Chesterfield,” says Kiva Rogers, the director of the Chesterfield/Colonial Heights Department of Social Services. “Especially in providing a well-balanced food resource for families.”

The food bank’s 20,000-square-foot distribution center in Chester was once part of a farm, then a gym. (An old silo became a sauna – and now a home for spiders.) There’s a loading dock and cold storage, administrative space, pantries stocked with non-perishables, and a large space for the distribution.

People waiting for food sit in front of a red barn facade that reads, “Giving the Gift of Food.” There are representatives from the health care industry and Robin’s Hope Trauma Recovery Center on-site. (Other nights feature different nonprofits.) Hill’s brother ministers and raffles off cakes and turkeys, while more families filter in, getting a number.

“I never thought in a million years that I’d be coming here,” says Bonita Haskins, who lives about 5 minutes away. She comes to supplement her family’s food supply. “Whatever people get per month, it doesn’t stretch to cover a grocery bill sometimes. They take all their money and try to pay bills, and then they don’t have anything left over.”

On the other side of the distribution area, volunteers line up with grocery carts and snake their way through bins of food, collecting tubs of fresh greens, bags of produce, and stacks of bread products. Each overflowing cart meets a customer at the door, and a volunteer takes the food out to that person’s car before circling back in for another round.

The food contributions come from all over. As an affiliate of Richmond’s Feed More, Chesterfield Food Bank can buy food from them at cents on the dollar. Local grocery stores like Publix, Kroger and Walmart donate generously. And then there are business and civic partners that participate in two major food drives a year. The food bank is currently in the midst of the 60,000-pound drive.

Everything must be sorted for quality and by type.

“What they do here is amazing,” says Kristen Butler as she sorts. “The amount of food they bring here, they handle it like it would be their own. I just think this is one of the most phenomenal ways to give back in this community.”

Butler and her husband came to the food bank looking for a way to give back in their retirement, thinking they’d check out a few places. They’ve been volunteering multiple times a week ever since.

“There’s a much greater need out there than we understand,” she says. “And I didn’t understand it till I got here – what it does for people to get them back on their feet in a time of need.” Folks who receive assistance for a time often come back to volunteer, she adds.

It’s Steve Allgeier’s job to make sure all the perishables are out the door at the end of the night, balancing the supply with the number of people who’ve checked in to receive food.

“Look, here it is Friday night,” says Allgeier, who volunteers as a distribution leader on Friday and most Saturdays. “Most of these people probably worked all day or went to school all day and look where they are.”

The shopping carts of food are meant to feed a family of four for five days. For some couples, it lasts two weeks. The food bank prioritizes fresh foods, filling carts with as many fruits, vegetables and meats as they can, Hill says.

A 67-year-old Woodlake resident who declines to give his name says he felt ashamed the first few times he came for the Friday night distribution. He had a job and insurance, but esophageal cancer and chemotherapy, then being hit by a driver while walking out of a store, drove his medical bills into the six figures.

Allgeier and others put him at ease, he says: “[Steve] said, ‘Man, don’t worry about it.’ This has been a wonderful place. There are so many people who come here and work so hard, and they don’t get anything but a thank you.”

The food bank has only seven paid staffers, relying on 12,000 registered volunteers. They need around 100 volunteers to sort food throughout the week, between 75 and 150 per distribution, and across their programs, Hill estimates a weekly average of 400 to 500 volunteers.

“It shows how much a grassroots organization with a very small staff and a lot of love from the community [can] accomplish,” Hill says.

Volunteer Kyle Rogers helps Clifton Griffin load groceries into his car. PARKER MICHELS-BOYCE

A majority of the food bank’s recipients don’t receive government assistance. Most, Hill says, fall into that gap where they make too much money to qualify for government aid but still struggle to pay bills and keep food on the table. “We’re meeting the need that social services and other government agencies can’t, because they’re just over the line,” Hill says. “They don’t qualify for assistance. They’re looking for better jobs, or there are medical issues in the family. It’s so many different situations.”

Median household income in the county dropped from $83,279 to $76,969 between 2000 and 2018, according to a 2018 demographic report from the Chesterfield County Planning Department, and individuals in poverty have more than doubled – from 11,586 to 23,707.

The county’s 7.2% poverty rate is still lower than its neighbors’, but the large population and geographical vastness of Chesterfield brings unique challenges to those providing services.

And, of course, the poverty rate is calculated federally. The 2019 guidelines consider a family of four with an income of $25,750 or less as impoverished, which means a family of four bringing in $26,000 is making too much to qualify for many government programs.

“We definitely rely on [Chesterfield Food Bank’s] services to help us meet the needs of citizens,” says Kiva Rogers. Her department is able to refer families experiencing a crisis situation to the food bank while they’re waiting for an application to be processed, for example, or if they don’t qualify for government programs at all. “The food bank really helps us to expand our reach.”

Everybody receives food the first time they show up, says Hill, no matter where they live. Non-Chesterfield residents are given information to find a food pantry in their area. “If they live in Chesterfield, it’s a very liberal qualifying process,” Hill says.

Seniors over 63 that live on a fixed income will be able to get food twice a month “forever and ever, amen,” says Hill. And children are a big constituency, too. The summer meals program helps alleviate food insecurity when school isn’t in session. The bank supplies pantries in middle and high schools where students pick up some food for the weekend. And the grocery distribution for families on Fridays and Saturdays remains crucial to the equation.

“It just brings a different level of dignity when the food is in the house and in the refrigerator, and it allows them to live more as a normal family,” Hill says.

Hill sees the food bank as part of a large, interconnected system of services in the county – government, nonprofit and faith-based. For every program, there’s a partner helping with collection, distribution, or to spread the word. “We’re not just trying to be the big guy on the block that handles everything,” says Hill. “But when we come together, that’s when the magic happens.”

And that’s important, because Hill says they feel the effects of the county’s continued growth, as well as state and federal policy – government shutdowns, changes to federal programs. The Trump administration is set to tighten work hour requirements for food stamp recipients, to take effect in 2020.

The county report projects a Chesterfield population of 392,811 by 2030, with those age 65 and up claiming a higher and higher percentage. Even if the poverty rate levels off, more and more residents will need services like the food bank’s.

Is Hill worried about the food bank’s long-term capacity to meet the needs?

“Does it sometimes concern me? Yes. Do I worry? No,” Hill says. “It’s probably because I’ve seen how we’ve grown to meet the needs of the county for the past nine years. What we’re building here has a foundation. Because everybody’s on board, it’ll be here long after us.”

Volunteer Kaneeya Nash helps distribute spaghetti squash and collard greens at the food bank. PARKER MICHELS-BOYCE

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Chesterfield Food Bank fills the void between 'poverty' and putting food on the table - Chesterfield Observer
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