By Heather Bell
RADFORD – Radford-Fairlawn Daily Bread got a recent boost to its efforts to feed the hungry with the award of a $3,000 grant from Food Lion Feeds Charitable Foundation, the non-profit arm of Food Lion that helps feed people across the country, including several efforts in Radford.
Radford-Fairlawn Daily Bread has served well over 30,000 meals this year. JD Jones, manager of the Food Lion store on Tyler Avenue in Radford, and assistant store manager Mike Walters presented the grant to RFDB Program Director Gretchen Dee.
“Thank you so much, this really helps us out,” said Dee.
This year has been particularly expensive for RFDB. Prior to the pandemic, the organization spent about $5,000 a year for food and received the majority of its food from ‘diverted food’ stocks from grocery stores, Virginia Tech, and Radford University. The pandemic changed how universities feed their students – by giving out individual box meals – meaning leftovers were not as plentiful. The pandemic also meant a long period when students weren’t on the campuses at all. That, combined with other factors, led to a food bill of $38,000 for this year, nearly eight times the food bill of previous years.
Jones and Walters both expressed their support of the RFDB mission, which is to give out a hot, home-cooked meal at lunchtime five days a week. The meals are available at the Daily Bread’s facility on the ground floor of Long Way Brewing and through Meals on Wheels delivery.
In addition to RFDB, Food Lion on Tyler supports other Radford food outreach efforts, including Bobcat Backpacks, ROCK Club, and church food pantries.
Radford Fairlawn Daily Bread has been serving meals to guests through Dining Room Services since 1992 and took on the Meals on Wheels program in 2006.
