Va. Foodbank asks for public's help

NORFOLK, Va. - It's shopping day for the Bank Street Memorial Baptist food pantry.  Director Al Jarrett packs the church van with bread, meats and veggies - supplies that don't last long.

"We have about four or five containers of meat and all that stuff will go out this week, especially the produce and bread," says Jarrett.

The church is one of several of the Southeastern Foodbank's member pantries. Jarrett comes twice a week to stock up for his weekly distribution. While the full market bins look like he has plenty to choose from, there's nothing but empty shelves waiting in the warehouse.

"This is a new day, and a new time, and a situation most people haven't been in," says Southeastern Foodbank's Chief Development Officer Marianne Smith.

The economic impact has taken a bite out of the Foodbank's supplies. Last year, 250,000 people stocked their pantry with food from the foodbank. They've passed that number already.  To meet the growing demand, Smith says the foodbank needs more than 75 tractor-trailer loads of food. That's about 3 million pounds of food.

"As of a week and a half ago, we had already served 273,000 people with five months to ago in our fiscal year," says Smith.

From the foodbank to these bags, volunteers at Bank Street's food pantry sort out a week's worth of food for 80 families. Sylvia Barrett says she's handing out more bags than ever.

"Quite a few people are coming young and old we have alot of senior citizens from our Brentwood towers here as well as people coming from all areas of the city"

Deloris Shelton has volunteered for nearly 10 years. She can tell when foodbank donations are down.

"We used to have real bags so full of food they'd be bulging with food peeking out but now this is very skimpy and they really need donations from somewhere and from people to fill up the bags again."

Donations to the foodbank can be dropped off directly at their Norfolk location or at many local Walgreens stores, Thrift Store City, Jackson Hewitt Tax Service, Old Point National Bank, Harmon Auto Glass, Mechanical Service Company and Farm Fresh locations. The addresses for drop-off sites are listed on the foodbank's website.

Click here for drop-off sites on the Peninsula or in Elizabeth City .