In 2023, Haymarket Regional Food Pantry (HRFP) served 59,768 people- a 61.3% increase from 2022. From 2018 to 2022, the number of clients served by HRFP grew by 94%.
“To meet the skyrocketing demand, we added more appointments, more hours, more volunteers to pick up, put away & distribute food, more grocery store partners, more donors, submitted more grant applications and spent twice as much money on food,” said Eileen Smith, HRFP Executive Director. “Expanding every aspect of our organization to the point where we could no longer accept new clients, we went back to our mission statement for guidance on a solution.”
Our Mission
The Haymarket Regional Food Pantry (HRFP) is a community-based organization composed entirely of volunteers. We are dedicated to eliminating hunger by providing food to those in need of assistance in Haymarket, Gainesville, and surrounding areas.
So the HRFP Strategic Planning Team was born, composed of board members and volunteers from every area of the pantry. At its inaugural meeting in January 2024, the team began by assessing the state of food insecurity in Prince William County, as well as the dramatic growth in clients in the past few years. Based on this analysis and discussion, the team concluded that the paramount issue facing the HRFP is sustainability. The team also identified several areas for improvement in how we organize operations and utilize resources.
Five strategies to achieve our mission, vision, and sustainability
In 2024 and beyond, we will focus on providing value to our stakeholders and creating positive experiences that exceed their expectations in order to build their ownership and commitment to our mission.
To better achieve this goal and reflect our mission statement, we will orchestrate five interconnected strategies:
- Create a sustainable model: We will work towards a model based on a feasible core service area and continue refining the model as conditions change
- Acquire resources and partnerships: Addressing 3 key areas (financial donors, food sources, and fundraising), we will prioritize increasing food/financial donations, collecting data and key information, creating an annual budget, and specifically defining programs
- Communicate and engage: We will tailor communication and engagement to the needs of different stakeholder audiences (clients, volunteers, donors, partners, etc.), taking care to meet people where they are
- Recruit, acquire, train, and develop talent: We believe training must be enhanced both for big picture issues and specific needs. Core groups include volunteers, clients, and other stakeholders
- Achieve organizational effectiveness and resilience: Orchestrate resources, partnerships, engagement, and talent to achieve operational excellence
Moving forward
Our first step to address a Sustainable Model is to create a sustainable service area. After carefully considering many options, the Strategic Planning Team recommended we focus our efforts on Haymarket, Gainesville, Catharpin, Bristow, and Nokesville. Our goal is that the HRFP will serve between 30,000-35,000 clients in 2024, providing the ability to help neighbors closer to our location as well as providing for future growth.
Next steps
Each task force will create a detailed action plan, including metrics and measures of operational excellence/resilience to measure the success of the initiative. We will update this plan consistently to reflect ongoing actions and accomplishments from each team.
“As leaders of an all-volunteer organization, it is important for us to act responsibly for all our constituents- not just our clients but for our volunteers and community partners as well,” said Smith. “With the plan in place, we are refocusing and recommitting ourselves for 2024. We will implement change to provide the best experience for our clients and volunteers.”
To learn more, visit our Reports page here to read the full strategic plan.