Local high schools in Falls Church saw red this Veteran’s Day weekend, but not in an angry way.

On Saturday, November 11, Food for Neighbors (FFN) — a nonprofit organization focused on providing food support for students — held their Red Bag event at Luther Jackson Middle School. The event allows people to donate food and toiletries for local schools, in which this recent time helped students at Luther Jackson Middle School and Falls Church, Annandale and Justice high schools.

“It is important that residents of the Falls Church area support FFN because our four pantries consistently run out of food each month; there is more demand than we currently can fulfill meaning we need more donors.,” the organization’s Falls Church area manager Paula Prettyman said. “I donate to FFN because it is really easy to make a big impact; five times a year my family purchases an additional grocery bag of food and leaves it out to be picked up on the scheduled Saturday morning.”

Collections for the Red Bag program happen five times a year. During November 11th’s event in the Falls Church area, 28 drivers and their helpers collected 4,850 lbs of food and toiletries donated by 353 households, with 75 volunteers helping with the delivery of donations. Across Northern Virginia, 167 drivers and 800 volunteers collected, sorted and delivered 24,643 lbs of food and toiletries which will help students in 42 schools in Arlington, Fairfax and Loudoun counties.

“In addition to other wonderful community members, approximately 25 businesses, organizations, and other groups participated by providing food drives and/or hands-on support,” Prettyman said.
Food for Neighbors began in 2016 after founder and executive director Karen Joseph was witnessing children asking for food and learning that the food insecurity rate was “extremely high” at Herndon Middle School where she was a Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) president.

As a “mom and parent,” Joseph said the Red Bag program was started by “rallying” her neighbors to give food to local middle and high school students in Herndon, which then eventually expanded to other local counties in Northern Virginia.

“It empowers the local community to take care of the kids,” Joseph said. “I think once people know [about food insecurity] and become aware of that, they realize that there are organizations that they can participate with or donate to in order to help feed the teenagers.”

The reason behind the Falls Church area hosting a Red Bag event was simply because “schools raise their hand” and ask for help, according to FFN’s community liaison Renee Maxwell.

“I love how [the Red Bag Program] is amazingly flexible because it allows us to address the schools that we’re partnering with,” Maxwell said. “It’s very easy for us to expand to new schools requesting support.”

Maxwell, who also has been volunteering for FFN since 2016, said the program and event is a way for community members of all ages and backgrounds to come together and help collect, sort and deliver necessary items for students.

“It’s a wonderful, energetic event,” Maxwell said. “We couldn’t do it without the schools because it’s the social workers, counselors and parent liaisons who are identifying the students who need the most help.”