HAMPTON, Va. — It's an alarming sight at the Virginia Peninsula Foodbank.
“Every summer, we go through this, especially by the month of July,” said Virginia Peninsula Foodbank CEO Karen Joyner.
Empty shelves where community partners pick up food. Unfortunately, it's becoming a common trend. That's according to Foodbank CEO Karen Joyner.
“When kids are out of school, the grocery bills just skyrocket for their families,” she said.
She said the donations to the Foodbank are also seeing a decline.
“People don’t think of people needing food during the summer,” Joyner said. “But the need does not drop off.”
Inside the warehouse sits shelves for local churches and organizations to take food back to the community. Some of those shelves have little food on them. Joyner said by the end of the day, almost all of these shelves are bare.
“We have 140 partner agencies,” she said. “They depend on us to have some food for them to take back and distribute to their neighbors in need.”
Joyner said the lack of donations pushes them to purchase more food. She said the Foodbank spent at least two million dollars on food during the last fiscal year.
She said they'll generally find produce, if nothing else at the Foodbank. Joyner said the Foodbank purchases a tractor-trailer load of fresh produce every week. She adds donating these items will make a big difference.
“Shelf-stable items such as canned vegetables, canned fruit, pasta, pasta sauce, canned meat,” Joyner said.
She said they're always looking for monetary donations as well to help with several foodbank needs.
"Unfortunately, we have other operating costs," Joyner said. "If we're buying food, which is most important, we still need to repair our trucks, repair our air conditioning units, things like that. So, the money goes very far."
You can make a donation on the Foodbank's website.