When Governor Robert F. McDonnell officially declared September "Hunger Awareness Month" in the Commonwealth, he acknowledged that more than 1,012,500 people in Virginia rely on food provided by the members of the Federation of Virginia Food Banks annually.

This food is distributed to those in need through a network of food pantries in communities throughout the commonwealth.

Since 1994 one of those food pantries, Seven Loaves Services, Inc., has been dedicated to providing nutritious food, personal supplies, and other assistance to those in need.

The all-volunteer, ecumenical, faith-based, non-profit organization operates out of the Middleburg United Methodist Church.

Nearly 800 households registered for help from Seven Loaves in 2011. During that year the organization responded to a combined total of 5,188 visits to the Seven Loaves Food Pantry. The specific circumstances that necessitated those visits are generally unknown.

What is known is that the visitors had a singular purpose — they needed food.

By the end of 2012 the number of registrations and visits to Seven Loaves will equal, and probably exceed, those experienced in 2011.

Most people living in our community and the surrounding area enjoy what we call "food security" Food security exists when all members of a household, at all times have access to enough food for an active, healthy life.

At a minimum food security requires: (1) the ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, and (2) an assured ability to acquire acceptable food in socially acceptable ways (that is, without resorting to emergency food supplies and other coping strategies.)

Unfortunately, too many people (some of them our neighbors) know and experience "food insecurity." In those households the availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods in uncertain or worse, as is the ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.

Those experiencing food insecurity often include: the elderly trying to live on a small fixed income; the sick, injured, and disabled, those who are unable to work; the able-bodied but unemployed (of which there are many given our current economy); and the working poor, whose wages are insufficient to support themselves and/or their families.

These categories focus on the adult population; but there are also children who live in many of these household.

Last year there were 972 children in the households served by Seven Loaves alone.

Fortunately, Seven Loaves exists in a generous community within a generous country.

It is supported by local churches, local organizations, local businesses, and caring individuals.

It is staffed with volunteers who want to help their fellow man by doing what they can to help feed those in need.

If you would like to support Seven Loaves by becoming a volunteer, please call 540-687-3489.

If you would like to make a monetary donation to Seven Loaves, please mail it to Seven Loaves Services, Inc., P.O. Box 1924, Middleburg, VA 20118.