"Sharing What God Has Given, With Glad and Generous Hearts"

Our History

While St. Stephen's Episcopal Church provides the bulding, equipment, management, and many of the volunteers, the food and other items we provide come from community-wide donations.

Our own parishioners and those of many other churches in Culpeper and nearby areas bring food collected at weekly services. We receive daily donations of food and other products from local businesses, individuals, schools and clubs. Many service organizations run food drives or sponsor fund-raisers, allowing us to purchase items not donated in sufficient amounts to meet the growing need for help.

Because of this strong community support, we have been able to meet the need in our community without any government funding.

2010 Statistics:
 
Meals Given Out: 169,973
Families Served: 4,773
Individuals Served: 13,897

We are located behind St. Stephen's Episcopal Church off Commerce St., next to the town parking lot, across from the train depot.

The Culpeper Food Closet has been a mission of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church since 1984, founded by Earl Cook. It actually began in a closet under a stairway, where they stored a few items to be given out to folks in need. Over the years, it grew to fill a Sunday School room, then a meeting room. Finally, in 2005, the church built our new building, directly behind the original church. The Culpeper Food Closet occupies the entire ground floor. While the physcial address is 115 N. East Street (the same as the church address), the Food Closet is accessed from Commerce Street.
 
From those humble beginnings, the Culpeper Food Closet has grown to an organization that has over 80 volunteers, providing food to an average of 80 - 100 families each week.
 
We are open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., providing food, household supplies and personal care products to families and individuals who are referred to us by The Department of Social Services. In 2008, we provided 110,000 meals and have provided over half a million meals since 1999!

The Culpeper Food Closet