CANstruction
October 27 - November 3
Dulles International Airport
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AIA Northern Virginia's 15th annual Canstruction event will be held at Dulles International Airport this year due to renovations at Reagan National Airport. On Friday, October 26, local architecture firms will build their structures made of canned goods - all of which will be donated to AFAC.
Click here to view photos from previous Canstruction events!
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AFAC is looking to hire a new
Volunteer Coordinator
! If you or anyone you know is interested, please visit our
jobs page
for a full job description and application instructions.
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Halloween Hootenanny
Friday, October 26
George Mason High School
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Do you love carnival games, raffles, or haunted houses? Join us on Friday, October 26, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at George Mason High School's fourth annual Halloween Hootenanny! There will be a haunted house, food, games, raffle, and lots of fun. This family-friendly event will be held in the Mason cafeteria and auxiliary gym and will benefit AFAC.
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Haunted House
October 26, 27 & 31
4228 N Old Glebe Rd.
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Boy Scout Troop 104 will be hosting a FREE haunted house on October 26, 27, and 31 at 4228 N Old Glebe Rd. They will be collecting non-perishables for AFAC to help feed Arlington neighbors in need as well.
See flyer for more information.
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Fall-O-Ween
Saturday, October 27
Market Common Clarendon
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Looking for a family friendly Halloween event? On Saturday, October 27 from 1-4pm Market Common Clarendon is hosting a
Fall-O-Ween Festival, with music, trick-or-treating, games, and much more! If you would like to decorate a pumpkin, bring a food donation for AFAC!
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Scouting for Food
Saturday, November 10
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The annual Scouting for Food drive is right around the corner! On Saturday, November 3, scouts from the Chain Bridge District of the National Capital Area Council will drop off bags to houses in neighborhoods. Fill these bags up and place them outside your door by 8 am on Saturday, November 10 and scouts will bring them to AFAC! We are hoping to collect 60,000 lbs of food.
Watch this video for more information.
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Arlington Turkey Trot
Thursday, November 22
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It's not too early to start thinking about the annual Turkey Trot! Registration for this Thanksgiving morning's race is live. Proceeds from the race benefit AFAC, A-SPAN, Arlington Thrive, Bridges 2 Independence, OAR, and Young Life of South Arlington.
Click here to register.
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Driver for Grocery Store Pickups (Alexandria)
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We are looking for someone who is available the 2nd Sunday of the month (occasionally, we may ask you to swap with other team members) around 8:00 am to pick up grocery store donations at the Alexandria Safeway (1624 Belle View Blvd, Alexandria, VA 22307) off of Fort Hunt Road. You can do this in your own vehicle. Once you pick up the donations, you'd deliver directly to AFAC. We estimate this to take approximately an hour each time. If you are interested, please email
volunteer4afac@afac.org for more details.
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Weekday AM Distribution Volunteers
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We're looking for people who have daytime availability to help with our distribution process. You may help with actual distribution or help in our prep area sorting through items that go on our shelves. Ideally, you would commit to one day a week. We ask that people try it once or twice first before making that commitment. The hours are 9:15 am-12:15 pm. If you are a registered volunteer, please go to the
online calendar
and look for the assignment called "Distribution Morning Helpers" to find vacancies.
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Deliver & Pickup Holiday Food Drives
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Do you like to drive and keep your own schedule? November-January is our busiest season for food drives. To help our over-burdened driving staff, we're looking for people who are comfortable driving all over Arlington and have a little bit of strength to unload food drive boxes and deliver them to AFAC. You can do this as little or as much as your schedule allows, but again, our biggest need is for people who are available during daytime hours Monday through Friday. If you are interested in helping, please email
volunteer4afac@afac.org. This is also a great gig for college students who are home for long winter breaks.
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Cooking & Nutrition Corner
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Thank you to Chamberlain College of Nursing students for helping AFAC during the last two months. They finished their community health clinical with us by hosting a mini health fair with kids! We're excited to work with two new groups of students in the next few months and continue working with Marymount University nursing students this fall/winter.
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Plot Against Hunger Updates
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Thank you to researcher Don Weber at USDA-Beltsville for allowing AFAC volunteers to harvest 2,526 lbs. of winter squash last week. A very good source of vitamin C, magnesium, dietary fiber, phosphorus, potassium, folate, vitamin B6 and vitamin K, winter squash is a heart-healthy food that's delicious! Clients have been sampling roasted squash and squash soup prepared by AFAC cooking volunteers. Partner agencies DC Central Kitchen, Arlington Assembly of God, and La Cocina received some of the large 5-8 lb. hubbards and Georgia candy roasters!
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Thank you to Loudoun Hunger Relief for sharing with AFAC 760 lbs. of bell peppers, eggplant, lettuce, spinach and summer squash -- freshly-picked crops that were harvested in the nick of time before last week's frosts at local Loudoun County farms.
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St. Andrew's Episcopal Church Garden celebrated the end of the season with a BBQ lunch for their gardeners. As volunteers from Marymount University, Portico Church, and others cleared the garden and spread mulch, head gardeners Dave and Doris Smith and Ted and Ann Edwards were busy at the grill and tossing salads! Thank you to St. Andrew's gardeners for their dedication throughout this peculiar wet season that yielded over 2,000 lbs of vegetables for AFAC.
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A picture is worth a thousand words, and a dish is worth a thousand "yums." Thirty gardeners attended the October 10th garden talk to celebrate the end of the season with food. They brought potluck dishes that contained ingredients from their gardens. Standouts included: picked cucumbers three-ways, sorrel risotto, roasted figs with rosemary, wildflower honey, green tomato mincemeat over vanilla ice cream, squash soup and mashed squash, beef stew with garden vegetables, ...the list goes on and on! A special thank you to Audrey Morris, Becky Halbe, and Catherine Connor for their help coordinating the March-October series of talks; to Arlington Central Library staff for accommodating speakers and to the many presenters who made the series possible.
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Big thanks to Cherrydale UMC and The Falls Church Episcopal Church for hosting Sponsor Purchased Food programs at their locations this past weekend. Combined, members of both churches bagged 12,500 lbs of food for Arlington families in need!
Special thanks to Marker Miller Farm for allowing AFAC to glean 3,914 pounds of apples.
Thank you to Glebe Elementary for holding a food drive that collected 1,123 pounds of food and to Thomas Jefferson High School of Science & Technology for collecting 1,864 pounds of canned goods as a part of their can-struction event!
Thank you to Federal Lock & Safe for their collection of 908 pounds of food and to FIS OPM for taking part in the Feds Feed Families food drive campaign.
AFAC relies on the support of many volunteers to get our work done. In the last few weeks, volunteers from the Air Force, APS Stratford Program, Arlington County Fire Department, Ashlawn Elementary, Bellevue Forest Garden Club, Capital One AMP, Cornell University Alumni, Department of Energy, Kiwanis of South Arlington, NACD, Pariveda Solutions, Penn State Alumni, Pentagon City YSA Ward, Portico Church, Rock Spring UCC, St. John's Community Services, St. John's Episcopal Church, Temple Rodef Shalom, Volunteers for Change – Volunteer Fairfax, Wakefield HS PEP students, Wegmans volunteered their time. Our thanks to the many groups and individuals who volunteer to help us feed the 2,300 families who come to AFAC each week.
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Thank you to all those who held food drives or donated to Plot Against Hunger!
10th & Barton Community Garden; Ballet NOVA; Bethel UCC; Central Library & Garden; Clarendon Presbyterian Church & Garden; Cub Scout Pack #164; DC Central Kitchen; First Presbyterian Church & Garden; Fort Barnard Community Garden; Glebe Community Garden; Kay Houghton & Associates; Laureate Beta Upsilon; Marymount University's "Food For Thought" Garden Club; Northern Virginia Catholic Community; Penzey's Spices; Potomac Overlook Garden; Resurrection Lutheran Church & Garden; Rock Spring UCC & Garden; Sinclair Farms CSA; St. Ann's Catholic Church; St. Andrew's Episcopal Church & Garden; St. George's Episcopal Church Garden; St. John's Episcopal Church; St. Stephen & St. Agnes' Upper School Garden; Stephen & Nisha Pryor's CSA; Susan Howell's Garden; Swanson Middle School 6th Graders; Territory Foods; Walter Reed Garden
Many thanks to the farmers' markets and farm vendors in Arlington who donate unsold fresh and local produce to AFAC all season long. Participating farmers markets include Arlington Courthouse, Ballston, Columbia Pike, Crystal City, Fairlington, Marymount, Rosslyn, and Westover.
Big thanks to the Arlington Public Schools that donate healthy snacks on a weekly basis as a part of the Food Bus program: Arlington Science Focus ES, Arlington Traditional ES, Discovery ES, McKinley ES, Nottingham ES, and Tuckahoe ES.
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Fresh News is generously sponsored by Washington Workplace
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Arlington Food Assistance Center | 703.845.8486 |
www.afac.org
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