On a sunny Tuesday morning, about two dozen animated, enthusiastic volunteers move efficiently in their oft-rehearsed dance of preparation for the 10 a.m. opening of the Cryer Center Food Pantry at Middlesex County’s Cryer Center, located at 7485 General Puller Highway in rural Locust Hill.
It is a bustling place, crowded with volunteers busily packing brown grocery bags filled with items like canned vegetables and soups, dried beans, rice, snacks, applesauce and chips. The central food area overflows with bins and pallets containing fresh oranges, apples, potatoes, cabbage and sweet potatoes, which will be included in the food distributions. A nearby freezer holds today’s meat item—three-to four pound frozen hams- that will be added to the shelf-stable items, fresh fruit and produce. Outside tables are brimming with desserts, prepared cakes and trays of breads that will also be distributed to food pantry clients.
Volunteer Don Hollingshead of Wake, who is busily packing bags, says, “The type of food varies depending on what comes in [for distribution]. I try to pick what I would like to eat when I ‘m packing the bags.”
Hollingsworth, a retired parts manager for an engine distribution company, has been a food pantry volunteer for three years, along with church friends Kyle Jenkins and John Mitchell.
“I do mission work with them in Southwest Virginia,” he explains. “I started volunteering at the food pantry after I became a member of Zoar Baptist Church in Deltaville. Working here is part of our overall church ministry.”
According to volunteer Gayle Chambers, prior to the 2020 COVID -19 outbreak, clients came inside and filled their own bags. However, since that time, volunteers prepare packed bags inside before they are taken outdoors where volunteers help load them into vehicles for preapproved clients who visit the food pantry via a drive-up system.
The food pantry itself is one of a number of services offered by the nonprofit group Hands Across Middlesex, a faith-based community outreach established over 30 years ago to provide assistance to community members in need. Started by a coalition of churches, pastors and laypeople, today over 30 Middlesex churches and partner groups like Food Lion in Saluda and AARP Tax Aid Service are part of Hands.
The food pantry operation—which includes food distributions at The Cryer Center on the second and fourth Tuesdays and the third Saturday of each month—also features a mobile pantry operation, with refrigerated food truck deliveries made to several church locations in Middlesex. The food pantry portion of Hands Across Middlesex’s operations serves not only income-qualified Middlesex County residents but also serves approved citizens in Essex County and four counties in the Northern Neck. Clients get food pantry food once monthly. Qualified residents over age 60 get “senior boxes” of food, one per person, once a month.
Dave Cryer
Although qualified residents in Middlesex and five other counties can utilize food pantry services, Hands Across Middlesex’s other programs—including the building of temporary ramps for people with mobility issues, a home repair program, an Adopt a Senior program, and “Backpack Buddies” (a program providing children in Middlesex schools with six “child-friendly” meals each Friday for the weekend)—are for Middlesex residents only. Moving quickly amid the volunteer workers is Dave Cryer, the building’s namesake. He is upbeat and enthusiastic, while admitting a slight tiredness from his always-busy schedule. He and wife, Linda, donated the land and built the building that has become The Cryer Center, with a grand opening in January 2010. Nonprofits Hands Across Middlesex and Habitat for Humanity, an affiliate of Habitat for Humanity International, share space at The Cryer Center.
The building also includes Hands’ outreaches like a clothes closet and furniture barn. The Clothing Closet is open on the first Thursday of each month. Yard sales are held every second and fourth Saturday featuring donated items for sale that the public can purchase.
In 2023, yard sale income, including The Clothing Closet income, totaled nearly $100,000. These monies support Hands activities. Hands operates with up to 125 volunteers. There are no paid employees. Cryer notes that volunteers, Marie Williams and Terry Murphy, gave more than 600 hours each last year in volunteer hours worked.
Last year, The Cryer Center Food Pantry served over 400 families a month and volunteers packed over 5,000 bags of food for recipients. Over 675,000 pounds of food were distributed via the pantry and its food programs in 2023.
Cryer, a Philadelphia native and former Marine who served two tours in Vietnam, moved to Richmond to attend graduate school (history and physics) at the University of Richmond, while concurrently teaching in Henrico County. While working at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College in Henrico in 1980, he met the former Linda Oslin, who grew up in Mechanicsville in Hanover County. The couple, who share six children and over a dozen grandchildren, married and worked as teachers while also working in the area of real estate investments. Their married life includes being foster parents to over 50 foster children over a 30-year time span.
“Linda wanted to be at the river,” Cryer says of their decision to buy a lot in the Urbanna area in 1997. “We started construction on our house here in 2000 and moved here full time in 2002.”About a year later , Dave joined Hands Across Middlesex.
“They had a little office in a local church,” Cryer remembers of Hands, “so we found some land and built [The Cryer Center].”
He discusses this matter-of-factly. Today Cryer, who also works with other area nonprofits including the Middlesex Kiwanis Club, is chairman of The Cryer Center Food Pantry, the center’s facility chairman and outreach director and is vice-president of Hands Across Middlesex. He shrugs when asked about his volunteer work and responsibilities, which include not only administrative responsibility, but actual hands-on volunteer work.
He admits, “What affected me is seeing the way some people have to live.”
He adds, “But there was no divine light, no great inspiration [regarding getting involved as a volunteer]... I enjoy working with the volunteers. I pick up furniture, and I deliver food [via the Mobile Pantry]. There is a lot of appreciation for what we do. I constantly hear appreciation from people.”
Cryer says every day , excluding Christmas Day, a volunteer goes to Food Lion in Saluda to pick up surplus food. Recently, they have also started pickups at two Dollar General stores in Middlesex.
“We also go to the Healthy Harvest Food Bank in Warsaw,” Cryer explains. The Healthy Harvest Food Bank is a food distribution organization offering what their website calls “comprehensive hunger solutions.” This food bank provides food to over 34 partner agencies in their distribution area of the Northern Neck and Upper Middle Peninsula. Their signature program includes the provision of fresh produce donated by farmers. They have also started an aquaponics production facility to grow premium quality fish and vegetables, complete with fish tanks that are expected to yield 6,000-8,000 pounds of fish annually.
“They are just starting to grow farm-raised fish—tilapia—as part of their Healthy Fresh program,” Cryer explains.
He adds that food is also purchased when needed via Hands, explaining, “I just made a recent purchase of $3,600.00 for canned spaghetti and meatballs to put in the ‘Backpack Buddies’ [packages].”
Cryer notes that the Food Pantry and Hands have “a diverse group of volunteers,” adding that most volunteers are retired. However, on a recent day at the Food Pantry, two Middlesex High School students were among the volunteers: Kamren Williams, a junior, and Adam Newman, a senior. On this day, both students were busy packing food distribution bags. Both are part of Middlesex County Public Schools’ Compass Academy, headed by director Danielle Norris, an innovative, award-winning program where students are enrolled in a nontraditional learning environment. The program offers flexible learning online courses as an alternative path to graduation and allows secondary students the opportunity to hone in on their interests and excel through self-paced learning and community involvement.
“I was struggling academically [before Compass],” admits Newman. Regarding volunteering at the Food Pantry, he says simply, “I enjoy it.” Williams notes, “Volunteering made me realize I like to help people. I didn’t know how much I would enjoy it.”
Regarding the food pantry, Norris, who accompanied her students, admits, “What surprised me was the quality of the food. I have seen papayas and almonds. There’s good, quality food. The pantry does a great job.” Volunteer Jimmy Johnson, a former teacher, jokes, “The food here is better than the food I had in Vietnam!”
In addition to the food pantry, Hands also operates The Clothing Closet, overseen by manager Germaine Loss Hayes. On this day, volunteers are sorting and hanging clothes to display. The Clothing Closet features not only clothes, but sheets and linens, towels, baby items, coats and household items. During special “client days,” preapproved clients come in, get bags with their names on them and have twenty minutes to shop.
Volunteer Helen Chandler notes, “Some of the clients we are now on a first-name basis with… we have become friends.”
Terry Murphy
Retired salesman Terry Murphy, one of the two volunteers who gave 600 hours of volunteer service in 2023, is working in the Furniture Barn and household items area on this day. He says simply that he likes volunteering at The Cryer Center, “because it’s a good cause, and good people run it.”
He points out furniture, household items and tools on display, noting that those wanting to donate household items can leave donations in one of the open trailers at the back of the Cryer Center building.
For his part, Cryer says, “We have some ‘wish lists,’ like affordable housing. We need more of that and more affordable rental housing. We need a laundromat in the area.”
While retired people make up the bulk of volunteers, he emphasizes, “Young people are welcome as volunteers, and we have evening [volunteer] hours available.”
Cryer sums up his contributions, saying simply, “This is a good job.”
For more information about The Cryer Center Food Pantry or other services from Hands Across Middlesex or to make a donation contact The Cryer Center,
7485 General Puller Hwy (PO Box 85), Locust Hill, VA. 23092.
Telephone: (804) 758-2044.
Email: handsxmdx@gmail.com.
Hands Across Middlesex is a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization and all donations are tax deductible.