Virginia Lt. Governor-Elect joins Henrico food pantry for pre-Thanksgiving distribution

The day before Thanksgiving, Lt. Governor-Elect Ghazala Hashmi donned a bright yellow reflective vest and held out a bright green shopping bag filled with produce at the door of a busy food pantry in the Lakeside neighborhood of Henrico.  

As the groups of people lined up outside the Islamic Center of North America food pantry before the 3 p.m. opening time stepped inside the warehouse, they were met by staff and volunteers who tallied up the visitors' information for the Feed More system, meant to keep track of the growing number of people seeking food around the region. Hashmi calmly extended the shopping bag to the recipients, who also were given boxes with rice, chicken, bread and pastries to bring home.

A cross section of people, from small children to elderly, all walked out with a shopping bag and box of food, providing nutrition and economic relief. The fruits and vegetables, rice, bread and crucially Hallal chicken, prepared according to Islamic religious tradition, would provide food for the long weekend and for many, a way to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday.

The distribution event was the latest hosted by ICNA as part of the organization's continuing efforts to support local families in need, honoring the holiday's spirit of giving and creating a heightened excitement with the presence of Hashmi, the first Muslim to win a statewide office in Virginia.

Volunteers buzzed around Hashmi as she smiled and offered a bag to the people who one-by-one entered for the food ICNA offers every Wednesday at its 3009 Lafayette Avenue location.

Hashmi is still a Virginia state Senator and is no stranger to service.

Before serving as an elected official, she spent nearly 30 years as a professor, first teaching at the University of Richmond and then at Reynolds Community College. She said she was a part of the ICNA Relief food pantry since its inception during the outset of the pandemic, when volunteers met at the Islamic Center of Henrico mosque about a block away, packing groceries every two weeks and then driving out to deliver food packages because people couldn't leave their homes.

“I'm amazed at the growth of this program and the success that it has in reaching families,” Hashmi said at the food pantry, surrounded by bags and boxes of food prepared by the many volunteers and staff who serve about 120 households a week at the location on Lafayette Avenue. “The cuts to [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] SNAP have devastated so many of our communities. And right now, there is a clear reliance on programs like ICNA Relief, in collaboration with the great work of Feed More, to ensure that families across Virginia are getting the food assistance that they need.

“This is especially important as tomorrow is Thanksgiving. We want to make sure people have food on their table.”

Hashmi said she has been visiting food pantries and food banks around the state as food prices continue to rise, taking a larger part of Virginians’ budgets. In October, people who receive SNAP food stamps were left without crucial funds they rely on to survive when the federal government shut down.

Hashmi has visited charitable food organizations in Roanoke, as well as the local Office on Aging, which delivers the Meals on Wheels program. A few weeks ago, she toured Feed More’s new Henrico County facility to see the services and resources that they have stood up in response to this crisis.

As a sitting state senator, Hashmi is still involved in budget discussions.

“Just last week, the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee met in Radford, and we heard a very, very dire prediction about where we are as a commonwealth, regarding cuts to food programs and cuts to health care through Medicaid,” Hashmi said. “Those are leaving huge gaps in our state budget. And that's something we all need to be working on as we craft the next two-year budget. We have to build in greater resiliency because of the chaos and the uncertainty coming from Washington.”

Hashmi said she and her colleagues are focusing on the Medicaid cuts and working to find statewide solutions to respond to the significant expected premium increases.

“If Congress will just reauthorize those premium tax credits, then folks will be able to maintain their health insurance, but if not, it's going to devastate over 300,000 families,” Hashmi said. “We are finding in the budget we have to build in a resource to respond to those cuts. We're in a wait-and-see posture to see what the federal government finally does by the end of December.”

Many in line were refugees and asylees from war torn countries who were settled in Henrico and who have lost SNAP benefits because of changes in federal policy.

“Even if they have legal status and they're asylees or refugees, [they are impacted by] the H.R. 1 bill, misnamed as the Big Beautiful Bill because it is actually a pretty ugly and a harmful attack on the most vulnerable,” Hashmi said. “The populations that the United States has opened its doors and welcomed in as refugees and as a critical part of our communities, now they're being absolutely marginalized and harmed by not getting the kind of food assistance that has been previously guaranteed to them.”

Hashmi sees specific concerning impact from federal policy changes as the current chair of Virginia Senate Education and Health Committee.

“The dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education has left our students with special needs particularly vulnerable because that language that protects the civil rights, access to education is no longer guaranteed,” Hashmi said. “I drafted a bill over the past several months working with stakeholders that puts those protections into place into Virginia Code, and one of my colleagues will be carrying that bill.”

ICNA is just one of 30 partner pantries in Henrico County within the Feed More network with a robust and crucial food distribution program benefiting from the umbrella Central Virginia Food Bank system.

ICNA also distributes food on the first Saturday of the month at Laburnum Elementary School near the Richmond Raceway and every Sunday in Richmond at the Monroe Park gazebo at 3:30 pm.

Dina Weinstein is the Citizen’s community vitality reporter and a Report for America corps member, covering housing, health and transportation. Support her work and articles like this one by making a contribution to the Citizen.