Facts About The Culpeper Food Closet

The Culpeper Food Closet has been a mission of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church since 1984. It actually began in a closet where we stored a few items to be given out to folks in need. It grew to fill a Sunday School room, then a meeting room, and finally, in 2005, the church built a new building directly behind the original church and the entire bottom floor is now the Food Closet. Parking is accessed from Commerce Street.

From those humble beginnings the Culpeper Food Closet has grown to an organization that in 2007 has over 80 volunteers and provides food, on an average, to around 100 families each week. We are open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and provide food, household supplies, and personal care products to families and individuals with referrals from Social Services. Clients wanting to receive food must have a voucher from Social Services only. During 2007 we provided 106,000 meals and have provided half a million meals since 1999!

While St. Stephen’s Church provides the housing, the equipment, the management, and many of the volunteers, the food and other items we provide come from community-wide donations. Our own parishioners and those of many other churches in Culpeper and nearby areas bring food collected at weekly services. We see daily donations of food and other products donated by local businesses or brought in by individuals. Schools, churches, clubs, and service organizations often run food drives or sponsor fund-raisers, so that we can purchase items not donated in sufficient amounts to meet the growing need for help. (We are currently seeing about a 38% growth in the number of requests for help each year.) Because of strong community support we have been able to meet the need for help without any government funding.

Each year, in addition to the daily operation, we provide a Thanksgiving turkey and the other traditional foods so that needy families can cook a nice Thanksgiving dinner. In 2007 that meant filling boxes for 627 families. This project is strongly supported by the community, and volunteers come in great numbers to help with the work.

If you are interested in becoming a food-giver volunteer, we use volunteers in two-hour shifts, with two daily shifts from Monday through Friday. We can always use volunteers who could be substitutes for regularly-scheduled volunteers who are ill or away. Currently we need some volunteers for Monday and Friday slots. For more information please call the Food Closet at 825-1177 and leave a message. We’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Food donations can be brought to the Food Closet between 10 and 2, weekdays. If you are making a monetary donation, please make the check to “The Culpeper Food Closet” and bring it to the church office on the second floor of the new building or mail it to:

The Culpeper Food Closet
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church
115 North East Street
Culpeper, VA 22701
540-825-1177