Rustic Love Vienna

💙 Running a school pantry takes more than putting food on a shelf. It takes time, love, organization, fundraising, and dedicated volunteers willing to keep it going.

🍏 At a middle school, the challenge is even greater. Families move through more quickly, so the needs, volunteers and fundraising base are constantly changing. And with grocery prices rising, pantry budgets are more stretched than ever.

💙 We’re honored that Rustic Love can help lighten the load for these incredible volunteers – and, most importantly, help provide nutritious food to students during such important years of growth, both academically and physically.

🍏 Our third grantee is the Kilmer Middle School PTA. This is Rustic Love’s seventh grant to Kilmer, and we’re honored to help ease food insecurity for children and families at the school.

💙 Kilmer’s pantry provides bags of food and essentials to 45 families each month, including toiletries, period supplies and laundry detergent. Our grant helps sustain the pantry for several months of the school year – a need that has become increasingly important over the past six years as circumstances have changed significantly.

🍏 Thank you to Kilmer’s PTA and dedicated pantry team for continuing to meet these important needs for kids and families in our community.

🍎 Every school pantry is unique in how it is funded, managed, and how it serves its community. Some are small, sending food home once a month in backpacks, while others serve entire school pyramids and see long car lines each week, with drivers sometimes picking up food bags for multiple families.

💛 But they all have one thing in common: they are powered by teams of volunteers with huge hearts.

🍎 Rustic Love has donated to 16 different FCPS school pantries, giving our Board of Directors a front-row seat to the many ways these pantries serve their communities.

💛 As part of our four-part grant series in honor of , our second donation this month went to one of the powerhouse pantries in our area: The Oakton Pantry at Oakton High School.

🍎 The Oakton Pantry is unique in several ways. It serves not only Oakton High School families, but also makes food distributions available to the entire Oakton community. It also has an incredible network of student volunteers through the popular Pantry Club, where students help pack, sort, and organize donations each week.

💛 And unlike many school pantries, The Oakton Pantry is completely operated by a non-school-based nonprofit, The Eddie Hurley Project. EHP carries out charitable ventures in memory of, and inspired by, the life of Eddie Hurley. Be sure to check out this amazing organization, which is supported by so many members of Eddie’s family.

🍎 Over the past six years, Rustic Love has supported The Oakton Pantry with grants totaling $40,000 – vital funds that have directly benefited children and families dealing with food insecurity throughout the Oakton community.

💛 We are so proud to have played a small part in supporting their incredible work.

As the mural at Oakton High School reminds us: ✨“Be the change you wish to see in the world.” ✨

September is Hunger Action Month, which is a national campaign to raise awareness and inspire action to end hunger in America. 🍎

Through your generous donations to Rustic Love, each September we provide financial grants to FOUR FCPS schools to support their amazing food pantries. 🌽

As food prices remain high and household bills continue to put pressure on family budgets, putting meals on the table is becoming increasingly difficult for families and individuals everywhere. Food is a basic human need, and every child deserves access to proper nutrition so they can thrive at school. 📚

Our first grant recipient was Cunningham Park Elementary School, right in the heart of Vienna. CPES has a 35% participation rate in the Free and Reduced Lunch Program. Due to space limitations, their pantry is currently able to serve 38 families, with biweekly distributions to families experiencing the greatest need within their school community. 🍓

Andrew Chapel United Methodist Church has been a critical partner in this effort, storing, packing and delivering pantry supplies every two weeks. Rustic Love’s grant will help the pantry purchase fresh foods, including fruits, vegetables and dairy products, to supplement the items provided to school families.🥛

We’re proud to stand alongside CPES as they care for children and families in our community. And we’re incredibly grateful to everyone who makes these grants possible through your generosity.
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Your donations to Rustic Love make an incredible difference in the lives of school children and families in our community! 💙

This past spring, Sleepy Hollow Elementary School in Falls Church received a Rustic Love grant to support their efforts to provide summer food bags to families in their school community. Each bag was filled with food and essential provisions to help sustain a family for several weeks – and the pantry was able to serve more than 70 families! 💙

Thank you to our amazing community for continuing to support local families, and to the dedicated team at SHES for their unwavering commitment to the children and families they serve. 💙

It’s the first day of school for FCPS! 🏫 Best of luck to everyone, including all the college students who are back on campus. 💟 Rustic Love has magnets in colors representing Vienna high schools and many Virginia universities. 🧡 Order yours today or check out the magnet selection hosted by Norm's Beer & Wine. Online order link for shipping is in the comments below.

Have a great first day! 📚

Thank you to our wonderful partner Texas Donuts - Vienna for hosting our new coroplast heart signs these past few months and helping us raise more than $4,000!
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We love seeing our signs (and getting our donut fix!) at Texas Donuts, and we’re so grateful for this special collaboration. Thanks to owner Hoang Ton for welcoming our Board Treasurer, Jennifer Bernstein, at the shop this morning. 🍩💟

As always, proceeds from our sign sales directly support kids and families experiencing food insecurity in our community. Thank you for helping us make a difference! 💙

☀️ Summertime update! ☀️
🍎 We recently received a very thoughtful update from Justice High School’s Wolf Shack, a pantry providing free snacks, food, toiletries, and clothing to any student who needs these essentials.
💙 This past school year, pantry volunteers logged nearly 15,000 (yes, 15,000!) student visits to the Wolf Shack. That's 5,000 more student visits than last school year.
🍎 Rustic Love was honored to be the Wolf Pack’s largest single financial donor to date, helping support the pantry’s continued operations and future growth.
💙 As always, none of this would be possible without YOUR generous support of our mission. Please know that your donations truly do make a difference in the lives of countless FCPS students. Thank you!

We’ve added new designs to our Coroplast sign inventory! 💟 These signs are 12x12 corrugated plastic, waterproof and feature photos of mountains, beaches and our crowd-favorite rainbow heart signs! 🌈 We dropped off a small batch for purchase at Texas Donuts - Vienna and have a limited quantity available online. Thank you to Silverado Printing for their partnership on printing these signs for us and to Texas Donuts for being the perfect point of sale – as always, every sign sold benefits kids and families facing food insecurity in our community.

Beautiful baby 🦌 and a beautiful Rustic Love sign! Photo courtesy of Nathalie Albrow 🩷🩷

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Your generosity is making a real difference.
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As the school year came to a close, Rustic Love made one final pantry donation for the season to support a very special local program: Poe Middle School’s Raven’s Nest.

Led by the incredible Marissel Miranda, Raven’s Nest continues serving Poe’s most vulnerable families all summer long through bi-weekly food deliveries to their homes. This labor of love happens entirely outside of her regular job and is a remarkable example of the significant impact one person can make.

The need at Poe Middle School is significant:

➡️ Nearly 77% of Poe’s 900 students qualify for Free and Reduced Lunch.
🍎 Many families lose access to reliable school meals during the summer months.
➡️ Traditional food drives and fundraising efforts can be difficult to sustain because many of the families who would normally participate are the very families receiving assistance.
🍎 Raven’s Nest relies heavily on outside donations and volunteers to keep its shelves stocked and serving families year-round.

We would love to help secure a business sponsor for Raven’s Nest for the 2026–2027 school year. If your company, organization, or employer is interested in making a lasting impact on local children and families, please contact us and we’ll gladly connect you with Marissel. ☀️

Want to help today? Raven’s Nest also maintains an Amazon Wish List:
🛒 https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/1G3BL23ZZKBLY

Thank you for supporting Rustic Love and our mission to help food-insecure families in our community. Summer can be one of the most challenging times of year for struggling households, and because of your generosity, we can continue helping Poe students and their families when they need it most.