Non-profit SevaTruck Foundation since the pandemic has been making meals at Lewinsville Senior Center in McLean and distributing them to people in need.
Fairfax County supervisors on March 5 approved a special-exception-amendment request from the county’s Department of Neighborhood and Community Services (NCS) to allow the foundation to continue its operations at the center permanently.
“This has been a great partnership, a great thing for the community,” said Supervisor Jimmy Bierman (D-Dranesville).
Supervisors in July 2021 authorized the county’s zoning administrator to suspend some proffers and development conditions to allow temporary uses, activities and structures that were needed to respond to the pandemic.
County officials contracted with SevaTruck Foundation to prepare meals at Lewinsville Senior Center’s commercial-sized kitchen, thus increasing the group’s capacity to distribute healthy, free meals to low-income and marginalized communities in the county and around the Washington area that were adversely affected by the pandemic.
But because that emergency ordinance expired one year after supervisors ended the local state of emergency, NCS officials sought the amendment to have SevaTruck’s food preparation continue at the center.
“We are only asking to make the current operations permanent and not expand them in any way,” said NCS assistant division director Karen De Mijango.
About 95 percent of meals prepared at the senior center benefit Fairfax County residents, she said. SevaTruck has served meals to Title 1 schools and low-income communities in Annandale, Baileys Crossroads, Centreville, Culmore, Falls Church, Fairfax, Herndon, McLean, Mount Vernon, Reston and Tysons.
In addition, the foundation prepares food six to eight times per month for senior-center participants at Lewinsville Senior Center, independent-living residents at the adjacent Fallstead at Lewinsville Center and Adult Day Health participants.
Lewinsville Senior Center is located on 5.58 acres at 1613 Great Falls St. in McLean. SevaTruck operates there on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Two employees and up to two volunteers prepare about 1,800 meals there each week.
The group distributes the meals between 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. via one employee in the food truck or volunteers picking up the food at the senior center and delivering it in their personal vehicles.
SevaTruck distributed more than 85,000 meals in 2023 and since beginning operations in the Washington region in 2017 has served more than 380,000 meals in Fairfax County, De Mijango said.
“We could not do the things we do without SevaTruck,” said Joyce Matthews, who teaches at Braddock Elementary School. “The truck has supported our after-school program by providing a free meal for our students who participate in all sorts of after-school programs, STEM-related. Also, they not only feed the children, they feed their families and they feed their teachers.”
