WASHINGTON — It's been a challenging year for nonprofits across the DMV. With many people out of work, more organizations than ever are now being stretched thin.
The pandemic forced volunteers to get creative and find new ways to serve their growing number of clients.
In addition to bringing a big spike in need, many nonprofits also saw a spike in the number of donations they received.
At Loudoun Hunger Relief, volunteers served around 300 families a week before the pandemic. Since March, that number has spiked to more than 900.
"It was a struggle. We had to really quickly change our operations. We had a pantry where people could come in and shop for themselves and we quickly switched to curbside service so everything is outside," said Executive Director Jennifer Montgomery.
Many organizations are in a similar boat. Volunteers at the nonprofit Mobile Hope said they handed out nearly 5,000 gifts during the holiday season. That is more than five times the amount of gifts needed this time last year.
"We have served about 157,000 family members just with our food outreach program. We have gone from eight stops per month before COVID to almost 20 stops per week now that we are in COVID," said Executive Director Donna Fortier.
Despite COVID, many nonprofits have seen the community step up to help meet the need.
The nonprofit Food for Neighbors collected nearly 48,000 pounds of food during the last year. In January 2020, they had collected about 10,000 pounds of food. After the pandemic started, they collected more than 16,000 pounds of food in November.
DC Central Kitchen has provided 10,000 meals every day since the pandemic started.
One of the messages we have is that people are still hungry in December, in February, March and April. It’s going to be even more so now so I hope the community will continue to stay with us, to work with us and to help us create the kind of resilient food system for the future so that when something like this happens again, we will be ready," said Mike Curtin with DC Central Kitchen.
