At a Dumfries food pantry, every single item on the shelves has come in over the last twenty four hours.

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Others signed checks.

And Ginger Trest put up flyers in her two Laundromats offering customers a quarter for every can they bring in and a thirty pound wash and dry for every bag of canned goods.

“The neighbors can't go hungry, a lot of people rely on that.” Trest said.

All in all, the pantry got three times as much donated food as usual Wednesday morning.

“Our shelves were literally bare,” said Rebekah McGee, food pantry deputy director. “We had nothing on the shelves.”

The "Action in Community Through Service" food pantry has experienced a 40 percent increase in demand in just the past six months. As a result, it has closed for the rest of the month.

“It was a very hard decision to make knowing that 2000 people aren't going to receive food,” McGee said.

Now, through November 1st, the pantry will still be distributing bread, pastries and produce but that's obviously not enough to feed a family.

It has historically had a surplus of food. But now serves a very different population -- members of the working class.

The pantry serves over a thousand families each month -- more than 4,000 individuals in Eastern Prince William County.