If you build it, they will come. So The Neighbor Bridge Inc. built six Little Free Food Pantries in Staunton, Augusta County and Waynesboro.
And now has an actual brick-and-mortar building to call home.
“This is our home base. We won’t be doing [the nonprofit’s activities] out of our house now,” said Chaz Fillion, who operates The Neighbor Bridge with his wife, Trisha.
In April 2023, the Fillions celebrated their first Little Free Food Pantry at Augusta County Library in Fishersville. Pantries at Gospel Light Church in Waynesboro, Habitat for Humanity in Staunton on Greenville Avenue and Waynesboro Public Library would follow. Ribbon cuttings are upcoming for pantries at the Valley Community Services Board in Staunton and Augusta Regional Dental Clinic in Fishersville.
But the nonprofit is also celebrating a home base at 1518 Jefferson Highway in Fishersville, in the basement of Fishersville Community Church, across from Food Lion. With space for donation storage, The Neighbor Bridge has an indoor food pantry called “The Little Grocery,” which is open Wednesdays 5:30 to 8 p.m., and “The Neighbor’s Closet” open the second and fourth Wednesdays.
“They get to actually come in and do their own grocery shopping,” Chaz Fillion said of the area’s individuals and families in need.
The grocery contains dry and canned goods, as well as other nonperishable food items such as honey, apple sauce and peanut butter.
The closet provides women’s and girls’ clothing from newborn to size 26, and men’s and boys’ clothing from newborn to size 3X.
Chaz Fillion said the closets allow individuals and families to come with their children and create good memories of shopping.
“We want better,” he said of resources of members of the community who are in need. “It’s a community that’s building up. We want you to feel like you’re out shopping, not asking for a handout.”
Trisha Fillion said she is excited for the nonprofit’s relationship with Fishersville Community, which is providing the space free of charge.
“We wanted people to be more like ‘I get to shop here,’ rather than ‘I have to shop here,'” she said.
A Brite bus stops on Jefferson Highway at the church’s parking lot, as well as east of the church at Augusta County Library.
Chaz Fillion hopes the next step for the nonprofit is a bus to provide transportation for community members to Little Free Food Pantries and the home base.
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Rebecca Barnabi
