Grove Christian Outreach Center
The Grove Christian Outreach Center was established in 2000 by Thomas McCormick, long-standing mail carrier for the Grove community, when he decided to help people he met on his daily rounds.
Grove Christian Outreach Center maintains an Outreach Center in the Grove area of James City County in order to minister to they physical and spiritual needs of the poor and disadvantaged in the community. They provide food, clothing, financial assistance, school supplies, holiday food baskets, Christmas baskets, shoebox gifts for kids, and a blessing room for families. Check out their website for more information https://groveoutreach.com/home.html
The Grove Community is designated by the US Department of Agriculture as a food desert due to low income levels and the lack of access to healthy and affordable food at a nearby grocery store. Local residents often have to do their “grocery shopping” at the Dollar General store, which is not only more costly, but offers less fresh and healthy food.
In addition, the Grove community is home to many low-income households that find themselves facing the threat of disconnected life-sustaining utilities or no money to pay for prescriptions and pay other bills. These problems are compounded by the lack of transportation; many of the Grove residents do not have vehicles, and public transport through the area is sporadic and does not go to the places where the residents need to go to buy food, attend doctors’ appointments, or access education.
The Center has eight employees and a corps of 120 volunteers. Of the $1.8 million the Center received as a combination of grants and donations in 2020, only about $250,000 (14%) was used for salaries and general administrative expenses. This is well below the average for non-profit organizations.
The development of the Grove community began with African-American settlement by freedmen from Carter's Grove and other local plantations following the American Civil War. Its population was fewer than 100 people until after the turn of the twentieth century. During the two World Wars, Grove increased markedly in population. In part this was due to attracting hundreds of displaced people, mostly African American, who were uprooted by federal land acquisition for major waterfront military installations in nearby James City and York counties, including the Naval Weapons Station Yorktown, the Cheatham Annex supply complex, and Camp Peary.
Food Pantry
The food pantry is open three days a week, and any person living in Grove may visit for full pantry selection once a week and return throughout the week to replenish their fresh fruits and vegetables.
A few years ago, I volunteered at this center on a Wednesday, which is the day they do their big food pantry. Every Wednesday, volunteers sort through and lay out vast quantities of fresh and preserved – including fresh meat, dairy, and produce. There is also day-old bread and similar products like bagels, muffins, and pastries. Some local grocery stories donate sandwiches from their deli departments and fun things like birthday cakes. I don’t know how the center does this, but they have obviously developed great relationships with local organizations to make this food available. One example I found – in 2019, Busch Gardens donated more than 9,500 pounds of food to this food panty.
At noon, the residents of the Grove community lined up at the front of the building to take their turn walking through the array of available food. The center has a list of everyone who lives in Grove, and they vary the line-up each week so that different people get to be first in line and thus have the greatest choices. Everyone on the list accepts this system. They know that they will be last sometimes, but also know that every so often they will be first. The permanent staff (I think there are five paid staff members) and regular volunteers obviously know the people they are serving and often talk to them about what’s available that day based on what the patrons have enjoyed in the past.
The day I volunteered, after I helped organize the items on display, I was stationed beside by the bread counter to help point people to items they were looking for and to keep the table tidy (and put out new items as the display was depleted) so that people could find things.
In 2020, the Center distributed over 704,444 pounds of food to 642 different families, representing 2,256 different individuals. 4,851 snack bags were distributed to children throughout the year. Lunches were distributed to 170 different families during the year and 2,949 units of USDA commodities were distributed. A partnership continued with the Lackey Free Clinic (6 miles away) on a weekly basis that provided whole grain bread, fresh produce, lean meats, and poultry to their diabetic clinic patients. Volunteers from local churches helped pick up donated food from 12 area grocery stores and restaurants as well as the Virginia peninsula foodbank. Hygiene and cleaning products were also distributed monthly through our pantry. The summer lunch program provided 5,751 lunches to children.
In addition to the food pantry, they have a Clothing Closet that Grove residents may access once a month.
They also provide financial assistance to families facing eviction or disconnection of life-sustaining utilities and prescription medications.
Volunteers are at the heart of the activities of this Center. They need volunteers in their food pantry and clothes closet.
There are other ways to get involved:
They need paper bags. I have donated stacks of paper bags to this organization from time to time
They accept donations of seasonally appropriate clothing and other household items.
And they of course welcome monetary donations.
I think it is shameful that a community as generally prosperous as Williamsburg needs an organization like this (and the other charitable organizations I have talked about in the past several months) to help some of its residents meet the necessities of life.