Since 2015 Grace Cafe has partnered with the Chesterfield Food Bank to provide a hot, home-cooked meal at no cost to approximately 100-150 neighbors each week. Whether you come in need or for a time of fellowship and community, dinner is served every Tuesday from 5:00 PM - 5:30 PM for carryout. (Call 804-748-4636 to reserve meals.) Many cook, serve, and set-up teams make this ministry happen. Consider volunteering in this culinary program.

In 2022 in its first year, CPC’s Garden on the Corner produced over 2200 pounds of vegetables from collards, kale, lettuces, broccoli and cabbage, to radishes, squash, zucchini, cucumbers and strawberries, and also tomatoes, beans and pumpkins!

Most of the garden’s produce is taken to the Chesterfield County Food Bank to be distributed to the community. The produce has also been used in the preparation of meals for Grace Cafe, and patrons have the opportunity to pick up a portion of that week’s fresh harvest in addition to dinner. Produce is also added to food bags provided through the CPC’s walk-in ministry. 

Our after school tutoring program has worked successfully since the 1980s mentoring second and third grade students from Curtis Elementary School who have been identified as needing extra help.

Our volunteer tutors work one-on-one with students on homework, math and reading skills Tuesday and Thursdays during the school year.

We can always use additional tutors. Please consider tutoring on both Tuesday and Thursday. However, if you can’t do both days, volunteer for the day that works best, and we will try to pair you up with a partner.

There is a very high percentage of children in Chesterfield County who go without food on weekends when school is not in session. These children all qualify for free and reduced breakfasts and lunches while they attend school, but when the weekend comes, they go hungry. For a number of years, CPC has been providing backpacks full of food for a weekend for the school-selected children from Marguerite Christian Elementary School.

It takes committed people to make this program work! Shoppers and packers are needed throughout the school year to ensure these students don’t go hunger over the weekend.

Walk-In Ministry, a project of the Downtown Community Ministry, provides a free lunch to those in need Monday through Friday at five churches in the downtown Richmond area. Chester Presbyterian helps prepare and serve lunch at Second Presbyterian Church the first Monday of the month, eight months a year. This is an easy, but vital service to the greater Richmond community.

According to the Central Virginia Food Bank, “1 out of every 9 individuals in our service area is food insecure, meaning that more than 165,000 of our neighbors face hunger. And of that, more than 50,500, or 1 in 6 children, are not eating enough. Where there is need, we are here to help those in need.”

Those who hunger are the frail elderly, disabled, working poor and numerous children in Richmond and Petersburg alone. Most are underfed or undernourished through no fault of their own, often due to chronic poor health, aging and/or limited income." Chester Presbyterian has responded by partnering with the Chesterfield Colonial Heights Alliance for Social Ministry (CCHASM) to provide a week's worth of food for at least 2-3 families each week, plus those who walk-in during the week needing food assistance through our Food Pantry.