NORFOLK, Va. — In the Church Street Shopping Center, you can still see the burned Family Dollar store and left-over shopping carts from the shuttered Save-A-Lot grocery store.
It’s been three months since the Family Dollar in Norfolk’s St. Paul’s Area caught fire and left that community a food desert.
The Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia and the Eastern Shore is doing what it can to help. Volunteers hosted a big food giveaway at the shopping center, which is right across the street from Norfolk’s Young Terrance.
"Food is expensive, it’s costing us a lot of money. It’s not going to get any cheaper,” resident D. Nevels said “Our bills are higher. The gas is higher. Everything is higher! Everything is completely out of control."
There aren’t any grocery stores in this neighborhood, so families have to travel farther to find food at higher prices.
“It’s ridiculous! I went to go buy some creamer last week, creamer used to be $2, now it’s $4 - so you can see the change," said Norfolk resident Catherine Phillips. "Even in mayonnaise... mayonnaise used to be $2 to $3, now it’s $5!”
Phillips added, "It’s very hard out here. Especially our community down here. You can’t win for losing.”
The Foodbank’s president and CEO Christopher Tan said it’s because there are no fresh food options in this community that his team decided to help.
“We have a lot of food deserts in communities across Hampton Roads but certainly we want to impact those who are most impacted by food insecurity,” Tan said. “We want to make sure that we have food where people need it – number one, and quickly able to access it. We also know there are barriers to transportation and things like that.”
Tan said hunger is a silent epidemic: it’s something you can’t see, and you don’t always know when families don’t have enough to eat at home. But his team has noticed more people are showing up at the food bank, looking for a little extra help.
"The impact of COVID is really hitting the bottom line, you couple that with inflation and our numbers are 20 to 25% higher than they were during 2019," he said.
According to the food bank, today's food drive helped 544 families.
“The neighbors that come to us may be working two jobs, working very hard for the work that they’re doing, but their money doesn’t go as far," Tan said.
He said food giveaways like this aren’t possible without donations, and the best thing you can do to help is to donate money. You can also donate your time.
“$10 to the Foodbank can give us $60 worth of groceries, as opposed to you going to the grocery store and buying $10 worth of food,” Tan said. “These distributions don’t happen without many, many volunteers willing to make a difference in their communities.”
Tan said while help is more readily available during the holidays, hunger is a year-round problem.
The Church Street Save-A-Lot closed in June 2020. A company representative blamed “financial performance” for the closure.
The Family Dollar caught fire on Labor Day in September. According to a spokesperson for Norfolk Fire-Rescue, the "fire appears to be an intentionally set fire on a display shelf near the front of the store."
The spokesperson said the case is still open as the Fire Marshal’s Office pursues leads and information.