W&L’s Campus Kitchen Awarded a Grant from the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank The $45,000 Partner Impact and Innovation Grant will be used to purchase a new walk-in refrigerator and freezer.

By Brian Laubscher
July 13, 2026

The Blue Ridge Area Food Bank announced that Washington and Lee University’s Campus Kitchen was awarded a 2026 Partner Impact and Innovation (PII) Grant totaling $45,000.

The grant funds will be used to purchase a new walk-in refrigerator and freezer unit central to the Campus Kitchen’s efforts to provide fresh healthy food products to those who need it in the local community.

“We are incredibly grateful to have been awarded funding to replace the aging walk-in refrigerator and freezer through the PII Grant program,” said Ryan Brink, assistant director of the Shepherd Program and Campus Kitchen coordinator. “The Blue Ridge Area Food Bank has been a long-time partner with Campus Kitchen in our work of addressing food insecurity and food waste in Rockbridge County, and this award is a testament to their faith in our student’s ability to positively impact the lives of our neighbors.”

The new refrigerator/freezer unit will replace the current version that was installed in 2013 and is nearing the end of its expected lifespan.

“Throughout the past year we began noticing issues with refrigeration units and rather than exploring an expensive patchwork fix on aging units, we decided to pursue full replacement,” said Brink. “In doing so, we aim to preempt any catastrophic failures of those systems which would severely impact our ability to serve the community.”

The replacement of an aging cooling unit coincides with Campus Kitchen’s inclusion in W&L’s Full Circle Food Initiative, which recently received a grant totaling nearly $325,000 from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to optimize sustainability efforts meant to reduce food waste on campus. Additionally, the Campus Kitchen will celebrate its 20th anniversary during the 2026-27 academic year.

Launched in 2006, the Campus Kitchen is a student-led effort to combat food waste and hunger in Lexington and Rockbridge County by collecting surplus food from on-campus dining halls, community gardens, restaurants and grocery stores and transforming it into healthy meals. Since its founding, the Campus Kitchen has served 662,650 meals and has distributed 537,500 pounds of food through its Mobile Food Pantry. Volunteers have spent more than 75,000 hours supporting the Campus Kitchen and its programming, including prepared meals and its community nutritional education program.

The Blue Ridge Area Food Bank was formed in 1981 to improve food security through equitable access to good nutrition and the resources that support health and wellbeing. Covering roughly a third of the state, it has grown into the largest hunger-relief organization in central and western Virginia.