A Loudoun County, Virginia, woman has just wrapped up her 12th year of cutting and donating flowers from her garden to help feed food-insecure residents in the wealthiest county in the U.S.
“These people paid their rent, bought gas for their car, dressed their children, but yet had not enough money for food, at the end of the day,” said Rachel Roberts.
Dubbed “The Flower Lady of Leesburg,” Roberts has been volunteering for Loudoun Hunger Relief for approximately two decades.
About a dozen years ago, she started thinking about how she might help raise money to help neighbors who were struggling to put meals on the table for their families. She decided to donate flowers from her backyard garden, by setting up a stand in her driveway on Edwards Ferry Road.
“I started saving jars, I started saving vases, and my husband asked ‘What are we going to do with all that stuff in the garage,'” Roberts recalled. “I had a handmade sign, and the first weekend bringing in $50, I thought, ‘OK, there’s something here.'”
Each year, from May through October, she plants, grows and cuts flowers, and puts them on display at her homebased stand.
“Mother’s Day weekend, the biggest flower weekend of the year, it’s the season where peonies are out,” said Roberts. “And they’re such a nice reminder of mothers and grandmothers.”
After peonies, “Then hydrangeas come — again, it’s a lovely, nostalgic reminder of the old days, because they’re true garden flowers. They just keep coming — I plant flowers every year for the purpose of having flowers to donate.”
She also gets donations from churches, neighbors, and flower club members who say, “I’ve got an abundance of something, can you use it?”
Roberts said she never turns down a single blossom.
Jennifer Montgomery, president and CEO of Loudoun Hunger Relief said even in the affluent county, “There are people in need of food, everywhere.”
Feeding America estimates that approximately 6.9% of people living in Loudoun can be potentially food-insecure, and that’s close to 29,000 people, Montgomery said.
“The need is very real, and it’s here, and it’s in everyone’s backyard,” Montgomery said.
Loudoun Hunger Relief, located at 750 Miller Drive in Leesburg, offers a food pantry, and operates two mobile markets in Sterling, in the eastern end of the county.
Last year, Montgomery said the group gave away more than 2.5 million pounds of food. The sole requirement is that visitors be county residents — there’s no means testing.
“If you tell me that you need to eat, we believe you, and we want to make sure that you get the food that you need,” Montgomery said.
In addition to raising nearly $200,000 over the years, Montgomery said Roberts’ generosity is impactful in other ways.
“Not only is she putting beautiful flowers out into the community, which I think warms people’s hearts and makes people happy, the money that she’s raising is filling people’s bellies, filling their refrigerators, and that’s a feeling of love,” said Montgomery.
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