Long-awaited new Rappahannock Food Pantry home ‘a gift for everybody’

Expanded new building scheduled to open in May

Thanksgiving is a busy time for most food pantries and Rappahannock’s own is no exception. It’s also a time when many in Rappahannock are thankful for what they see in the near future: Completion of a new, long-awaited permanent home for its food pantry.

Rappahannock Food Pantry project managers expect the facility to open by May 2024 at Rush River Commons near the corner of Warren Avenue and Leggett Lane in Washington, across from the post office. The building’s foundation is expected to be poured by the end of this month, according to longtime pantry treasurer Pete Stenner. Before that, the geothermal and wastewater management systems had to be installed by Rush River Commons engineers. 

The Food Pantry is regarded as one of Rappahannock County’s standouts, a nonprofit organization attracting clients, volunteers and donors regardless of politics or economics. Stenner says he hopes this new location will prompt more people in the county to use the pantry’s resources.

The pantry expects to serve about 195 households – accounting for around 521 individuals – for Thanksgiving this year, and roughly 200 households for Christmas. Typically the pantry serves between 146 and 165 households per month, Stenner says. Clients are given Thanksgiving turkeys and all the fixings.

“Inflation is still killing people,” he says. “The food pantry is an asset for the people of Rappahannock County, and if you’re eligible to come there, shame on you for not coming.” 

With 4,500 square feet of floor space, the new facility will have more than double the space of the pantry’s current location on Route 211 in Sperryville. Larger than an average 7-11 store, the new building will have more bells and whistles than its previous two locations, including an expanded pantry “store” and spacious onsite warehouse storage. 

Unlike the pantry’s current rented home at 2,000 square feet of space as well as its original 400-square foot location on Mt. Salem Avenue in Washington, the new site will provide ample parking for clients and volunteers, easy access for food deliveries, a $78,000 walk-in freezer and refrigerator, kitchen, garden storage shed and meeting space for workers and clients.

“Storage in the Rush River building will be twice what we have at our Sperryville location and everything will be under one roof, instead of scattered among four outbuildings,” Stenner says.

The new pantry is already creating a buzz and an increase in volunteer interest.

“The new building and central location are already drawing younger volunteers,” says Shauna Volmrich, the pantry’s community outreach manager. Volmrich and Laura Lucas have co-managed the pantry after longtime pantry manager Mimi Forbes’ June retirement. 

The food pantry’s current location in Sperryville has its disadvantages. Staff, board and volunteers noted how it’s an old building in need of repairs. There’s little room inside for excess storage, and every morning, volunteers must haul inventory inside the building from the storage set up outside.

“In our present space, we don’t have private areas to talk with clients,” says Volmrich. “The Rush River space will let us do client input – which often involves financial discussions –  away from the actual shopping space.” 

But what makes the Rappahannock Food Pantry stand out from others will continue.

“We are a shopper’s choice pantry, meaning we let people come in and pick out what they want,” says Volmrich. “Other pantries just give clients a box of food. And we are open to everyone in the community.” 

Efforts to find a new home

In 2019, with the Sperryville pantry lease set to expire in 2020 without a chance for renewal, Forbes and the board were searching for a permanent space in the county. But time was running out.   

They found a possible location for a new building – a five-acre plot of land zoned for commercial development on Schoolhouse Road behind the Atlantic Union Bank on Route 211. But from the beginning the site presented serious obstacles with flooding and stormwater management. In July 2019, the Planning Commission turned down a request that would have allowed the food pantry to use that site, after opposition from county residents.

Enter John Fox Sullivan, mayor emeritus of the Town of Washington, and John Anderson, a Rappahannock native, to help make the dream come true. They began a capital campaign called “One Rappahannock”  to raise money to buy or build a facility. The two, along with a cadre of other pantry enthusiasts, pledged to raise $500,000 and they did, plus $150,000 more. 

Sullivan and Anderson created and distributed 5,000 green, hexagonal magnets that read: “ONE” Rappahannock FOOD PANTRY, Caring Sharing Together. The magnets appeared on car bumpers and refrigerators throughout the county and beyond. Individuals and organizations joined the effort, holding bake sales, car washes and chili cook-offs to raise money.

“We could have gone to a small group of people in the county with the means to finance the campaign,” says Anderson, “but the food pantry serves the whole community, so we wanted the whole community to feel like they had a stake in the pantry’s success. Recognizing community support was very important to us.”

There are donation boxes placed in nearly every business in the county for people to contribute what they can. Stenner said they’ve raised about $14,000 from these boxes alone, and all donations and fund-raising efforts are being put exclusively toward the new pantry. He says they’ve “fenced off” bank accounts containing funds for the new building.

It’s estimated that there have been as many as 2,500 anonymous donors who were in addition to the 400 donors whose names were recorded, says Stenner, “many of whom gave more than once.”

Chuck Akre’s role

Washington resident Chuck Akre, owner and developer of the Rush River Commons’ complex, says he told the food pantry that “we could be helpful.” In 2020, Akre pledged to provide a building site for a new pantry. 

Neither Stenner nor Akre will give details of the financial arrangement due to a nondisclosure agreement between the pantry and Black Kettle LLC, Akre’s company. But, Stenner says: “Every penny raised during the ONE Rappahannock campaign will go toward construction of the new building. We’re paying a fixed price for the construction of the building. [Akre] has given us a figure he expects us to pay to build. We will own the building, but we’ll lease the land.” 

Rappahannock Food Pantry Board President Noel Laing credits Rush River Commons and Akre for “enabling us to get a central location with the building we want, with the entrance and exits that we need within our budget. If it hadn’t been for that, we would have been in serious trouble, because in order to do all of that on our own without tying it in with everything else that Chuck Akre is doing there at Rush River, the cost would have probably been double what it is going to actually cost us.”

Summing up, co-manager Lucas says, “This new building is a gift for everyone.”

Foothills Forum is an independent, community-supported nonprofit tackling the need for in-depth research and reporting on Rappahannock County issues.

The group has an agreement with Rappahannock Media, owner of the Rappahannock News, to present this series and other award-winning reporting projects. More at foothillsforum.org.