Food Lion Feeds volunteers unload palettes of food at the center.
Foodlion’s Bob Mills (back row, far left), Tiffany Whitlock (front row, left middle) and Food Lion volunteers at Agape Center NRV Food Pantry.
Reg and Debbie Crockett, Agape Center NRV Directors
Angelica Ramos
Contributing Writer
CHRISTIANSBURG- The Agape Center New River Valley received a grant from the Food Lion Feeds Charitable Foundation called the Great Pantry Makeover which helps food pantries and centers with remodels and keeping their shelves stocked.
The Agape Center NRV is a nonprofit organization in Christiansburg that helps its community by providing not only food from its food bank, but also clothes, diapers, furniture and mentorship resources to help community members gain their footing and uplift them. Reg Crockett and his wife, Diana Crockett, are the directors of the Agape Center NRV, which is volunteer run and organized. Many of their clients, the Crocketts explained, actually become future volunteers at the Agape Center to pass on the help and support that was given to them.
The Agape Center is expanding in order to best serve the community. They have been renovating the schoolhouse on the Agape Center property to be able to hold the clothing store and mentors’ offices. They are also expanding by adding a walk-in cooler to the current food bank, which the Great Pantry Makeover is helping them with, along with updating the roof on that part of the building. The Crockett’s hope, with the expansions and renovations, is to be a one-stop shop for those in need and create an ease-of-access flow for their clients receiving the goods they need.
On Sept. 26, 2024, various local Food Lion employees, from managers to cashiers, volunteered to help with the Great Pantry Makeover. This volunteer work involved painting the new walk-in cooler area, stocking shelves with food donated by Food Lion and helping clean and organize the pantry shelves.
Bob Mills, the Community Relations and Marketing Specialist for Food Lion’s Northern Division, and Tiffany Whitlock, the Director of Operations for the Blacksburg Region and their team of Food Lion volunteers helped unload two palettes of food into the Agape Center Food Pantry. They also helped paint the new drywall in the soon to be walk-in cooler. The volunteers expressed great pride in being able to give back to local organizations and were “happy to help those in need in our community” as Whitlock said.
The food donation and volunteer work, Reg Crockett, explained, was much needed and just in the nick of time as their pantry shelves were getting low. The Agape Center and the Crocketts were, “so honored and appreciative” of the help they received from the Food Lion Feeds Charitable Foundation. The Agape Center takes donations of any size from non-perishable food to diapers of any size, including adult diapers to clothing for all sizes and genders in order to continue to do the community outreach work they do.
