Foodbank Basics

In 1981, a small group of individuals from the Southeastern Tidewater Opportunity Project (STOP, Inc.) of Hampton Roads recognized the issue of hunger in their community and came together to address it. With $50,000 in grant funding from the USDA, they started the initial infrastructure. What began as a Community Food and Nutrition Program was established as a non-profit organization and one of Virginia’s first food banks just a year later.

The original purpose of this organization was to serve as a regional clearinghouse in collecting and distributing unmarketable but edible food to appropriate non-profit organizations for their food programs. With 73 member agencies, they distributed 400,000 meals in their first year.

Since then, the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia and the Eastern Shore has proudly provided more than 420 million nutritious meals to our neighbors in need. Through our programs, facilities, and large network of community partners, we work to eliminate hunger daily. Our understanding of the need for a long-term solution aims at moving Hampton Roads closer to achieving the mission of eliminating hunger for those we serve—not only for the day, or for the week, but for a lifetime.