SUFFOLK, Va. — Volunteers are putting more than just groceries inside dozens of shopping bags lined up outside of Solomon's Porch. There's also a big helping of hope. The food pantry, near the edge of downtown Suffolk, is an arm of the nearby East End Baptist Church.
I first learned of the pantry in August when I surprised Yvonne Green with a News 3 Everyday Hero award.
Green has been a volunteer, helping to organize regular food giveaways for the past 25 years. She invited me back to Suffolk to see for myself just how many people line up for help each week.
"We have people in these lines now, who were donating to us, receiving food now," Green said.
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The need, Green explained, is growing. There were dozens of cars lined up for the pantry's food distribution event I visited this month. I spoke with some of the people waiting to receive bags filled with canned goods, pasta and proteins.
"Sometimes you get low in your commodities in the home, and so this helps me," said Muriel Willis.
"It's a good thing that they do for the community, especially with things that's going on now, people in need and stuff," added Jeanette Moore, another recipient.
Watch: Newport News food pantry struggles with limited donations
We are about to enter the time of year when the strain on community food pantries grows, with Thanksgiving and Christmas right around the corner. At the warehouses of the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia & the Eastern Shore, workers know that need all too well.
"The holiday season is like a food bank Super Bowl, in some sense," explained CEO and Executive Director Christopher Tan.
Tan estimates the Foodbank will deliver nearly twice as much food in November and December than it does in one typical month.
Beyond the added seasonal demand, calls for help are growing overall. He said the Foodbank gave out food 1.7 million times in 2023. That's an 80% increase from two years ago.
Watch more of our We Follow Through coverage: News 3 helps to fight food insecurity for military families
"It's a dramatic increase," Tan noted. "We're seeing a lot more than we're used to."
The latest statistics, released by the United States Department of Agriculture in September, show one in seven households struggled with hunger in 2023.
The Household Food Security report reveals 47.4 million people lived in households experiencing food insecurity last year, an increase of 3.2 million compared to 2022 and 13.5 million compared to 2021.
This spike, according to the Food Research and Action Center, was largely driven by inflation and the rollback of COVID-19 pandemic relief efforts that provided temporary boosts to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, allowed schools to offer school meals to all their students at no charge and expanded the Child Tax Credit.
Watch similar coverage: Food pantry feeding hungry military families expands service across Hampton Roads
While the overall need remains large, back in Suffolk, people like Yvonne Green are focused on something smaller -- changing lives one bag at a time.
"When you see a person that doesn't need us anymore, it means they are stable, they're on their feet," Green explained. "As long as we can service these people, we're going to do it."
Watch more: Report finds rising levels of hunger in northeastern North Carolina
One of the Foodbank's largest annual food drive events, the Mayflower Marathon, happens each November. Last year, the event collected enough food and monetary donations to provide more than 730,000 meals.
In addition to the Foodbank in Norfolk, similar organizations on the Virginia Peninsula and the Albemarle of North Carolina are helping residents put food on the table. The Armed Services YMCA also runs Patriot's Pantry, providing food and other household items to active-duty military families.
