LINK serves needy families at annual Thanksgiving program

"All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God” - 2 Corinthians 4:15.

By Lisa Lombardozzi

Well, it was a very busy day last Saturday for LINK! We served a record number of families – 855!

LINK, an all-volunteer Christian food pantry (established 1972) serving Herndon, Sterling and Ashburn hosted their annual Thanksgiving holiday program on Saturday, November 18th. More than 900 families were signed up to receive perishable and non-perishable groceries from LINK. This was the largest number of people requesting food assistance in the history of the holiday program which began in 1985.

901 families were registered (4,727 individuals) and 819 families actually came to receive food and clothing. LINK received an additional 36 walk-in families (unregistered) at the end of the day. Sterling UMC received 674 of the families needing winter coats, scarves, gloves, hats and sweaters. The pantry shelves have quite a few empty holes (cereal, bagged beans, white rice and jelly for example) and many other items are in very small supply.

Families were assigned to either Trinity Presbyterian Church (Herndon) or Christ the Redeemer Catholic Church (Sterling). They were able to select food for their family which had been donated by Scouting for Food, schools, businesses, churches, civic organizations and individuals. Folks were provided food for approximately three days and a grocery gift card. They also had the opportunity to visit Sterling United Methodist Church (Sterling) to select gently used coats and winter clothing for their family.

More than 25,000 pounds of food, $25,000 grocery gift cards and 3,000 coats and winter clothing items were distributed on Saturday, November 18th. Hundreds of volunteers provided the manpower for the week long pre-staging efforts and day of the event.

Can you help us spread the word about LINK’s need for more food and new toys?

LINK will repeat the process again on Saturday, December 16th. LINK will replace the coats with new toys for the 2,083 children (newborn - 16 years of age) who are registered for assistance for the Christmas holiday program. The food supplies are very low due to the record number of people registered for assistance. We need schools, churches, civic organizations and businesses to host food drives. We will also require more than 4,100 new toys.

If your team would be willing to host a food or toy drive to benefit LINK, please reach out to us - president@linkagainsthunger.org.

You can also visit our website - www.linkagainsthunger.org for more information. With your help, we can make the holidays a little better for needy families in our community!

LINK thanks our many volunteers and donors

Historically Northern Virginia has a strong and proud tradition of volunteerism and we are driven by a common desire to improve the communities where we live and work by forming lasting volunteer partnerships with local organizations. Through a commitment to service excellence we touch the lives of many people and promote hope and goodwill. We are involved in many community outreach projects that directly support our neighborhoods. We are tutors, mentors, classroom speakers, fund-raisers, board members and food drive organizers, among many other roles.

In Northern Virginia, we must be the ones to volunteer our time and resources. We can act as champions in our respective communities, using our own job related skills (i.e., program management, business development, sales and services, software and system engineering) to work with organizations that interweave community obligations with the desire to uplift and support those living in need.

The pressure of a growing population with tremendous cultural diversity challenges our community leaders. Our government infrastructure, churches, civic organizations and corporations need to work in unison to make certain that there is funding and programs in place to assure that no children go without attending school, receiving regular meals or wearing proper clothing.

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