Hold onto your produce bags, because every Sunday from May to November, Paxton Van Lines and Dale City Farmers Market teamed up to provide surplus veggies and fruits to the Northern Virginia Food Rescue!
With roots tracing back to 1987, the Dale City Farmers Market includes nearly 50 vendors in the summer and more than 20 in the winter. It is also one of the largest open-air markets in the region. They completed 27 food transportations, totaling more than 150,000lbs of donations delivered to the rescue agency. This provided over 125,000 fresh meals to those facing food insecurity and underserved communities.
This is the second year the farmer’s market has donated their leftover fresh foods, providing nearly 230,000 lbs of fresh produce to communities in need last year in collaboration with Paxton Van Lines.
The dedication that each partner and participant exhibits is inspiring and makes such a profound difference in the lives of our neighbors. We greatly value the partnership from all groups involved and look forward to our combined efforts in 2024.
Based in Springfield, Virginia, Paxton Van Lines has been part of the Move For Hunger network since 2011 and has transported more than 460,000 lbs, equalling over 385,000 meals, to local Virginia food banks.
Tyrone Agnew, the Project Manager at Paxton Van Lines, has enthusiastically volunteered for these fresh deliveries both years and has been an incredible supporter of this initiative! We couldn’t be more thankful for his help, as well as the help from the staff at Paxton Van Lines! Additionally, we’d love to shout out the volunteers that help collect the food from Virginia Cooperative Extension Master Gardener Program.
The Move For Hunger Fresh Food Program was launched in October of 2021, and has since proven to be one of our fastest growing programs yet. With our first year providing over 700,000 pounds of fresh food in just a few short months, it’s no surprise our network helped us deliver over 1.8 million pounds to the communities who needed it most in 2022. In the first half of 2023, we’ve already surpassed last year’s total at more than 3.7 million pounds of fresh food.
With help from our dedicated transportation network, we’re beyond blessed to have opportunities to impact the lives of the nearly 800,000 food insecure individuals in Virginia. We look forward to seeing the impact the rest of the fresh food deliveries make on our hungry communities!
Are you a mover interested in making a difference? Sign up for our mover network or host a food drive! You can also learn more about our fresh food initiative here!
