'Food distribution with dignity' at Waynesboro's River City Bread Basket

WMRA has reported that demands for local food pantries are up, but one newer organization is helping to fill the gap while prioritizing dignity in food distribution. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi reports.

[people talking, rustling shopping bags, music playing]

More than 30 people were waiting in line to enter a small building on the east side of Waynesboro last Thursday afternoon. Inside, volunteers stocked crates full of fresh produce, coolers of frozen meat, and shelves of dry goods.

LITTLE KID: I want green beans!

MOM: You want more green beans? And we can get one off of here? [taps can]

The River City Bread Basket offers free food to Staunton, Augusta County, and Waynesboro residents, and prides themselves on letting clients choose what they need, just like shopping at a grocery store.

ADRIENNE YOUNG: What sets us apart, and what we really wanted to do, was do food distribution with dignity. So when people come in they don't get a box, they get a shopping basket.

Adrienne Young is the executive director of the food pantry's parent organization, The LIFEworks Project.

YOUNG: It's a wide variety of things that people can get to choose from, and we never know on a given week what we're going to have.

Michael Markuson, who lives in Verona, said he appreciates the client choice model. His family doesn't eat pork for religious and health reasons.

MICHAEL MARKUSON: Well, times have been tough the last few years, so every little bit helps. And this place especially, since it's client choice. … So I get things that people don't normally get, like turkey burgers, and here we have lamb chops! Or fish sticks.

The Bread Basket opened in October, and Young said they're serving more and more patrons. As WMRA previously reported, in the past year, the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank has seen a 30 to 50% increase in guest visits to partner agencies like this one.

YOUNG: We have just started doing a little over a hundred people every week. … Since we've opened to the end of June – that's the last time I ran hard numbers – we were serving about 837 unique families in this area … and so that culminates into over 9,000 tummies fed.

She said about 2,500 of those benefiting are children. That's who motivates Volunteer Anna Wyche to come manage the meat coolers. She's originally from Nelson County, but now lives in Waynesboro.

ANNA WYCHE: We have so many hungry in the community with small children … and I try to help all of them, especially when I know they're single mothers. They might have one income a month, and the children's father not paying any child support. It's really hard on them … and like I said, my heart really goes out to them.

Adrienne Young and her husband, A.J., have lived in Waynesboro for more than 25 years. In addition to their day jobs – Adrienne is a case manager at the local Community Services Board, and A.J. works at the University of Virginia – they've been staples in the local organizing scene. They founded the Shenandoah Valley chapter of the Poor People's Campaign, which works on policy remedies to injustice and poverty. But Adrienne said that, during the pandemic, they were inspired to do even more. They started delivering free food to apartment complexes serving income-constrained and elderly residents.

YOUNG: But then, in 2023, when pandemic EBT went away … we started getting calls from families. … And we discovered as a board that it would be better if the people could come to us.

So, LIFEworks renovated a church building where they could set up a food pantry. They get items from the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank through a U.S. Department of Agriculture program, and pick up donations from grocery stores. Local farmers and gardeners pitch in, too.

YOUNG: We have wonderful partners in Project GROWS, Jones Gardens, and the Waynesboro Education Farm. We also have, just, neighbors who have too many tomatoes, and so they'll bring them here and want to share. You know what it's like? "Stone Soup."

"Stone Soup," that old folktale in which a community makes a meal by each person pitching in one ingredient, is an apt metaphor, as Board Chair Larry Stopper can attest.

LARRY STOPPER: Today we have a bushel of peaches that apparently were brought in by somebody who has a peach tree that's just overflowing with peaches!

He said the location of the food pantry is important.

STOPPER: We need to be in this neighborhood. This is the food desert … so this is important that we be where we are, but we'd love to buy the building. We'd love to expand the building. But right now, we're just on basic function mode.

The USDA no longer uses the term "food desert," but it has designated this census tract, on the east side of town, as a "low income" and "low access" area. The U.S. Census Bureau lists it as a "high poverty area," with almost a third of residents living below the federal poverty level. The closest grocery store to the food pantry is the Kroger store, 1.3 miles away. But if you don't have a car, that can be a difficult journey.

YOUNG: We saw a woman pushing a toddler in a stroller, and she was headed up to Kroger. And then when we were coming back, we saw her on her way back here, and the toddler was walking and the groceries were in the stroller. And it just broke my heart to think, this mommy has to cross four busy lanes of traffic to get back over here just to feed her family.

It's those mothers, fathers, children, siblings, and cousins that the Bread Basket seeks to serve – above all else – with respect.