As she stood behind the folding table, weighing boxes and taking notes, Teresa O’Donnell focused on what wasn’t there yet.
“What’s we got? What do we have?” she asked, picking up a call, setting her phone on the table and turning to a new page in her notebook.
“You’ve got the 25 cases of corn and the 25 cases of applesauce,” the woman told her. “You’ve got a pallet of bread, and a pallet of dry.”
O’Donnell nodded, noted, cheered for the bread and then turned to Virginia Ann Castle. “Do we want anything else?”
The phone call ended with O’Donnell placing an order for 10 cases of boxed macaroni and cheese, six cases of mixed vegetables, six green beans and five tuna. She passed on peaches — too expensive — and waited for a call back to hear what meat pallet would be available. She thought the tuna was a good buy that day: 48 5-ounce cans at $32.18 per case.
“That should help,” she said, and thanked the woman on the line. “And the corn and the applesauce. That should help.”
O’Donnell is the director of Neighbor’s Aid, and the closet of her food pantry was nearly empty on a Wednesday morning in July. But by noon it would be fuller. Feeding Southwest Virginia delivered a truck full of the pallets they’d ordered, and between those boxes and cans and the pickup they did at Walmart that morning, everything worked out for the St. Paul food pantry. As it always does.
It’s been an incredible feat for 10 years, but even more so today, when thousands of Virginians are without Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits and grocery prices are on the rise. Food pantries have been left to fill in the gaps with even less food on hand.
Feeding Southwest Virginia, a food bank through the national Feeding America program, has seen a 20% decrease in food from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the past year. Emergency assistance has returned to pre-COVID levels after a boom in assistance during the pandemic, said Pamela Irvine, president of Feeding Southwest Virginia.
For now, Irvine says they’ve been able to make up the difference through an increase in food donations from retailers, grocery and convenience stores. Some of the 275 agency partners under her organization, mostly food pantries, are trained to pick up food directly from these partners. Grants have also allowed Feeding Southwest Virginia to purchase more food and maintain the 21 million pounds they need yearly to support the region.
But agencies like O’Donnell’s are still feeling the impact, whether it be less government food or an increase in people who need help. There has been a 14% decrease in Virginians participating in SNAP since July 2025 due to the federal budget reconciliation bill called H.R. 1, which reduces funding for food assistance by $187 billion over the next decade.
Some agencies are more reliant on Feeding Southwest Virginia, while others are more independent with help from their communities, said Molly Pinkston, director of agency partnerships.
Food pantries in the region are seeing a 10% to 20% increase in the number of people in need this past year, Pinkston said. O’Donnell said Neighbor’s Aid falls somewhere in that range. They were seeing 250 families a month about a year ago and now are up to more than 275.
“We see more neighbors bringing neighbors,” O’Donnell said, alongside an increase in young people and those experiencing cuts in their SNAP benefits due to the tightening of eligibility requirements. “We are not able, with the cuts, to give as much in a food box as we had been giving.”
O’Donnell said their partnership with Walmart has been a lifesaver during this time. Now, they get about as much food from Walmart as they do from Feeding Southwest Virginia, she said.
The need at food pantries is coming at a time when groceries are more expensive, meaning stores like Walmart might have more food to give rather than throw away. O’Donnell said she’s noticed about a 20% increase in food from Walmart they’ve received in the past year-and-a-half.
“Walmart has kept us open,” she said.
About this story
This is the second story in a two-part series about food insecurity in Southwest and Southside Virginia. Check out Thursday’s story here.
Her team picks up from the Walmart in Lebanon three days a week, filling their pick-up trucks and O’Donnell’s SUV early in the morning. In July, scattered storms soaked through their raincoats as they loaded their cars, but they drove back full of food to blue skies in St. Paul.
Otherwise, they get donations from Dollar General and pick up bread at Food City on Mondays. They’ll purchase extra at a grocery store with money from donors, or from Feeding Southwest Virginia, which offers bulk items at a cheaper price. Castle visits the Abingdon location and “shops” between rooms of donated and purchased food. But it’s a careful balance.
“I always say we can’t buy our way out of this,” O’Donnell said. “We could go and take all of our money we have for the year and have a beautiful closet … it wouldn’t last two months.”
Agencies across the region are facing different challenges, depending on the resources they have available. At First Baptist Food Pantry, just down the street from Neighbor’s Aid, they shifted from serving monthly to every other week about a year ago, said Director Cindy Merricks. For one reason or another, they were coming up too short on food.
First Baptist has also had to purchase more food because of the drop in USDA food, depending on the month, she said. They are not on a list to work directly with partner organizations like Walmart, but they hope to be.
In the past year, Feeding Southwest Virginia has added four new partnerships, Pinkston said, and none have had to close for food-related reasons. There have always been ebbs and flows with donated food versus government food, which is why it’s important for partners to have diversified food sources, added Allison McGee, the food bank’s chief strategy officer.
After days of picking up boxes, unpacking them and repacking them again, a small line of people began forming at Neighbor’s Aid on a Thursday morning, which is food distribution day. Volunteers started to load buggies and began serving people an hour ahead of opening.
It’s a smooth operation, thanks to well-practiced volunteers and strong leadership. Castle worked the desk, taking tickets and reaching into freezers to fill totes with meat based on the number of family members to feed.
A qualifying individual is allowed to pick up USDA food from a pantry once a month; food many have to stretch until the next visit. If someone is out of food, Neighbor’s Aid is able to put together a box of non-USDA food to get them through, O’Donnell said.
By 8:30 a.m., they were already on box 10. One buggy got a box of cereal, a bag of meat, a box of produce, a box of canned goods, a box of bread, a pineapple and a cantaloupe. Tim Dowdy, a volunteer, sorted through Walmart food — strawberries, guacamole, snack packs — while Tony Watkins helped load people’s trunks.
Through any combination of good planning, or good luck, Neighbor’s Aid is sometimes able to give more than just necessities. They gave a woman a sheet cake for her birthday, and two little girls opened rocket pops handed to them by a volunteer. A couple picked up food for their neighbor and flowers for themselves.
At 10:30 a.m., there is less food and slimmer boxes, but enough to meet the need. By the end of the morning on July 23, they had served 55 families and approximately 170 individuals.
“Isn’t it a little miracle store?” Castle said she says to people. They’ll need peanut butter, and “all of the sudden, peanut butter will just show up.”
