{"id":9718,"date":"2026-02-23T06:03:52","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T11:03:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/northern-virginia\/?p=9718"},"modified":"2026-02-23T06:03:52","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T11:03:52","slug":"feeding-minds-and-tummies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/northern-virginia\/2026\/02\/23\/feeding-minds-and-tummies\/","title":{"rendered":"Feeding Minds and Tummies!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>February in Northern Virginia has been cold and snowy, but our members have been busy providing area students with food, clothing, and books, helping to warm hearts and brighten days.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, February 13<sup>th<\/sup>, the students at one of our local Title 1 elementary schools were celebrating Valentine\u2019s Day, the 100<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0day of school, and our &#8220;Build a Child\u2019s Library\u201d event.\u00a0 Each of the 856 students came to the gymnasium, where they chose a new book from the assortment of books we provided.\u00a0 Our members, along with their teachers, helped each student choose a book and sign their name inside the cover &#8211; making it their very own!\u00a0 The smiles on the children\u2019s faces were proof of a successful event.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/northern-virginia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2026\/02\/BaCL-feb26-Claud-JKids6.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"252\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-9719\" src=\"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/northern-virginia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2026\/02\/BaCL-feb26-Claud-JKids6-300x252.jpg\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/northern-virginia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2026\/02\/BaCL-feb26-Claud-JKids6-300x252.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/northern-virginia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2026\/02\/BaCL-feb26-Claud-JKids6.jpg 461w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The following week, on February 19, we held our monthly \u201cWeekend Food for Kids\u201d packing event at Dominion Energy.\u00a0 We provide 1900 bags of non-perishable food each month to children who receive free or reduced-price meals at six Title 1 elementary schools in Northern Virginia. The schools distribute the bags to the children on Fridays so they can be taken home to help alleviate food insecurity over the weekend. The support of Dominion Energy, which partners with us for this amazing program, is monumental.\u00a0\u00a0 Dominion provides the space for the packing event, volunteers to help pack and load the food onto the Dominion trucks, and the drivers to deliver the bags to the six schools in Fairfax and Prince William counties. The weekend food helps ensure that students arrive at school on Monday ready to learn and thrive.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/northern-virginia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2026\/02\/Bacl-WFFK-Feb26-Table1.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"282\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-9723\" src=\"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/northern-virginia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2026\/02\/Bacl-WFFK-Feb26-Table1-300x282.jpeg\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/northern-virginia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2026\/02\/Bacl-WFFK-Feb26-Table1-300x282.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/northern-virginia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2026\/02\/Bacl-WFFK-Feb26-Table1.jpeg 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Through grants, fundraisers and donations, we raise every dollar needed to purchase the food, clothing and books that support local children in need.\u00a0 Check out our programs elsewhere on this site to learn how you can get involved. It takes a village.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>February in Northern Virginia has been cold and snowy, but our members have been busy providing area students with food, clothing, and books, helping to warm hearts and brighten days. On Friday, February 13th, the students at one of our local Title 1 elementary schools were celebrating Valentine\u2019s Day, the 100th\u00a0day of school, and our [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95369,"featured_media":9721,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/northern-virginia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/northern-virginia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/northern-virginia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/northern-virginia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95369"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/northern-virginia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/northern-virginia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9724,"href":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/northern-virginia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9718\/revisions\/9724"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/northern-virginia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/northern-virginia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/northern-virginia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/northern-virginia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}