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Get Food
Volunteer
Donate
About Us
Need food?
Food is available at St. Thomas' Episcopal Church every Thursday from 2pm - 5pm.
Drive through OR Walk up
Hours:
Thursdays from 2 - 5pm
Address:
St. Thomas' Episcopal Church
3602 Hawthorne Ave. Richmond, VA 23222
What to bring:
While not required, we ask that you bring your Feed More card & a valid form of ID.
If you do not have a Feed More card, we’ll provide you one at registration.
Bus Stop:
Chamberlayne + Walton Bus Stop on GRTC Bus #1
We provide non-perishable food items, fresh fruits and vegetables, bread, frozen meat and other delicious items!
Hygiene items are provided when available.
Volunteer
Thanks for your interest in helping out with the St. Thomas' Food Pantry. Welcome! We distribute food to our neighbors in need every Thursday from 2-5 pm, and volunteers start gathering and pre-packing on Wednesdays.
We have several shifts available to choose from, although availability is limited depending on our current regular volunteer teams. Shifts include one early morning truck-unload shift from 7:30 to around 9 a.m. (depending on truck arrival time); and two Wednesday pre-packing shifts from 10:00 to 11:30 and from 1:30 to 3:00 p.m.. There is also a Thursday morning shift pre-packing produce from 10:00 to 11:30, a set-up shift from 12:30 to 2, and two afternoon distribution shifts from 1:30 to 4, and 4 to 5:30. The last shift on Thursday is a combination distribution and clean-up/take-down shift.
In addition to those shifts, we have gleaning opportunities where our volunteers travel to local grocery stores to pick up food donations, bring them back to our church, weigh the items and put them into storage. A larger vehicle is not necessary for these roles, but is helpful. These roles are fulfilled on Wednesday and Thursdays at various times.
If you are interested, please contact our volunteer coordinator at fpvolunteers@stthomasrichmond.org. We will assess our needs and send you an online application to fill out. A background check is required for all of our regular volunteers. Once your application is received and reviewed, we'll get you on the schedule as much as is feasible considering our needs at the time. We appreciate your willingness to help out and do your part to address food insecurity in our community!
We appreciate your time, and look forward to meeting you!
Kristin
Kristin Cummings, Director
St. Thomas' Episcopal Church Food Pantry
3602 Hawthorne Ave., Richmond, VA 23222
Donate
How you can help:
The need is tremendous, but there are many ways to help!
Donate time: If you’d like to volunteer, please contact our volunteer coordinator at fpvolunteers@stthomasrichmond.org to learn about available opportunities.
Donate food: We always need non-perishable food donations! Please visit our website for a list of our most needed items & current donation of the month!
Donate bags: We always need strong handled paper bags (bring them already doubled if you like!); recycled plastic bags without holes & sturdy reusable bags. We go through a ton of bags each week to get food out the door!
Donate money: Every financial donation makes a big difference in our ability to keep food on the shelves and keep our program strong!
You can donate financially by writing a check to St. Thomas' Episcopal Church and be sure to write Food Pantry in the memo line.
You can also hit the “Donate” button on our website. When prompted, please designate the “food pantry” as your donation selection in order for us to receive your gift.
Thanks for your support of our food pantry and please feel free to contact us with any questions!
About the St. Thomas' Food Pantry
51 weeks a year, the St. Thomas' Food Pantry is open to provide emergency and supplemental food for our neighbors in need. Our doors have been open in this capacity since 1992.
Mission Statement:
The mission of the St. Thomas' Food Pantry is to address hunger, loneliness, and neglect in our city by providing our neighbors with nutritious food, positive social interactions, and resources to support health & wellbeing.
Who we serve:
Our guests come from all walks of life: people who are working full time and not making a living wage, those who are working and don’t have adequate or any health insurance, people who have part time or multiple jobs, those who are caring for their children, raising grandchildren, receiving benefits or even living in group homes. While circumstances might be different, all of our guests share the experience of food insecurity.
Stats:
Pre-COVID, we served around 75 households per week. Once COVID hit in 2020, we skyrocketed up to between 300 - 420 households per week. Our volunteer team grew by leaps and bounds to meet the need. We had 208 volunteers this past year with 90 of those volunteers being new to us. Each week we fill 85-100 shifts with volunteers.
In 2021 families received money through the Child Tax Credit which decreased childhood poverty by over 40% & decreased the need we saw by roughly 1/3.
Currently, we seeing more families than we did at the height of the pandemic. On November 16th, 2023 we saw a record breaking 515 families and we have never run out of food.
Pre-covid 2019 stats:
Individuals served: 12,500
2023 stats:
Individuals served: 41,956
Pounds of food distributed: 568,824
Our partners include, but aren't limited to, Feed More, the USDA, Food Lion, Walmart, Lidl, Montana Gold Bread Company, Shalom Farms, The Williams City Farm & Seasonal Roots. We also welcomed donations from Sous Casa, the VCU Ram Pantry,
Fed Ex of Ashland, St. Mark’s COGIC, Mutual Assurance, the Toucans of Westminster Canterbury, Cut the Clutter, Period Patch and many other groups & individuals.
We offered 4 four week “Healthy for Life” cooking classes this past year to people utilizing our food pantry to help improve quality of life, health, wellness & build community.
We’ve been featured on CBS National News, CBS Local News, AXIOS Richmond article, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Richmond Family Magazine, and Richmond Magazine.
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