Food for Others operates four core services. First, emergency food is provided to individuals and families referred by social services organizations to the Food for Others' warehouse in Merrifield, Virginia. These clients are provided with several days' worth of food thus buying time for other sources of assistance to be arranged or for the crisis to pass. We also operate 9 mobile site locations to make our emergency referral program more accessible to community members in need. The warehouse is open for these programs Monday through Friday, 9:30am until 5:00pm.

The second service is Neighborhood Site distributions that occur weeknights at 11 sites in low-income neighborhoods across Fairfax County, Falls Church, and Arlington County.  Volunteers pick up food at the warehouse and then distribute it at designated locations. Northern Virginians in need of free food line up and are served after answering the only question asked: "How many people are in your family?"

The third service is our distribution to Community Partners. These are approximately 22 local Northern Virginia community-based organizations that receive bulk food from Food for Others on a weekly or monthly basis.  In providing this service, Food for Others functions as a food bank.  These groups pick up food at the warehouse, and in turn, offer it to the elderly, home-bound, homeless, school children, and other client populations at risk of hunger. 

Lastly, Food for Others provides weekend food to children through our Power Pack Program (P3). Many children in our area have little or close to nothing to eat between their lunch at school on Friday and the breakfast that is served Monday morning. Distributed on Friday afternoons, P3 provides elementary school-aged children with a pack of food to alleviate the child’s hunger over the weekend and allow them to focus more on their schoolwork.  We currently serve 43 Fairfax County Public Schools and roughly 3,700 students each week.

These four food distributions would not be possible without a variety of food sources. Volunteers and staff pick up most of the Food for Others stock from donor organizations.  Contributed food is then augmented as needed through acquisitions from food banks, food wholesalers, food drives, and produce gleaning activities. 

During the 2022 fiscal year, Food for Others distributed 3,721,181 pounds of food (3,100,984 meals); counted an average of 2,625 households served each week; 96,532 power pack meals distributed; 233,078 times food was provided to a neighbor in need. 

Our clients and the Food for Others community is richly diverse. The one thing that they have in common is their need for help and we provide that in the form of free food. This enables them to utilize their resources for the other great needs in their lives.