Community members and volunteers outside the Heart of Virginia gathered early Tuesday morning to rinse down wood pallets, clear excess water and mud from the flooring and work to salvage canned and boxed foods inside the FACES Food Pantry at 416 N. South St.

Damaged food or shelving items were thrown into a dump truck. The parking lot adjacent to the building was sectioned off for vehicles transported goods.

Dempsey Jones is a member of the FACES Board of Directors and a member of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) of Virginia Disaster Relief program.

Jones alerted fellow SBC members to FACES’ situation and Jones, with several other volunteers wearing yellow shirts, came in to help.

FACES President Ellery Sedgwick said most of the cans could be saved but that anything not canned and submerged in water, including produce and boxed food, had to be thrown away.

Meat, he said, was saved Saturday and is currently being stored in refrigerated trucks.

He said if he had to guess, they lost approximately 40 percent of their food. He estimated FACES was able to salvage 60 percent.

Sedgwick recommended that for those who want to help, give cash, not food.

He said FACES is an agency with an organization called FeedMore, which oversees food pantries in Central Virginia, including the Delma Branch Food Pantry in Cumberland County.

FACES purchase bulk items from FeedMore to distribute to the community.

Sedgwick said because of the partnership with FeedMore “We would not be able to distribute half of what we do.”

“Cash donations go very far,” Sedgwick said, noting that financial donations would allow the organization to restore the food they lost in the flood.

Re-purchasing the food would be inexpensive for FACES, too. Sedgwick estimates that the organization can buy produce at 4 cents per pound, canned goods at 20-30 cents each and chicken at 19 cents per pound.

In comparison, Sedgwick said it’s difficult to go to a grocery store and find a pound of chicken that is less than $4.

He said participants can donate online at www.facesfoodpantry.com or mail funds to P.O. Box 644, Farmville.

He thanked the town for lending the dump truck and for sectioning off the parking lot for the cleanup effort.

He said the greatest loss was of 13 freezers. While there’s a possibility a few could be fixed; he said the others may be far gone and cost approximately $900 each.