The economy is hitting everyone hard these days. One local farm that provides food for the hungry needs financial assistance.

The Volunteer Farm of Shenandoah grows fresh vegetables for the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank.

The farm, located in Woodstock, provides food each month for 80,000 people in 25 counties and nine cities along the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The farm is on pace to have 4,000 volunteers that have helped throughout the year. Those volunteers help plant, tend to and harvest crops.

Last year the farm planted 28 acres, but was hoping to increase production to 40 acres this year. That's in response to a 30 percent increase in hungry residents in the Blue Ridge region.

Chairman and CEO of the Volunteer Farm, Bob Blair, says because of a decrease in monetary donations, the farm is seeing some hard times lately.

"We've had a big increase, about 40 percent increase in the number of hungry people, so we're trying to produce more food to feed more people. But at the same time, the donations were cut back, because people just didn't have the money to donate," says Blair.

"We've had to cut back, we're basically operating on last year's budget, which is not enough to be able to increase the amount of food that we need to produce," he added.

About one third of the 80,000 people the farm helps feed each month are kids. Blair says one of their main goals is to provide nutritious foods to children in the area.

If you're interested in volunteering or donating to the volunteer farm, visit their website, www.volunteerfarm.org.

You can also mail a monetary donation to the Volunteer Farm at:
277 Crider Lane
Woodstock, VA 22664