The Northern Virginia Regional Commission (NVRC), a coalition of 14 counties, cities and towns that work together on regional issues, passed a unanimous resolution endorsing Virginia Governor Robert F. McDonnell’s call to participate in the 2013 Day to Serve.

Unprecedented in NVRC’s history is that a majority of the 14 member jurisdictions have also passed their own Day to Serve resolution. That includes each of the local governments of the counties of Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William; the cities of Fairfax, Falls Church, Manassas and Manassas Park; and the towns of Dumfries, Herndon, Leesburg, Purcellville and Vienna.

The 2013 Day to Serve is the second annual event, running from Sept. 15-29. The overall goal is to bring people together to create or expand projects. Project ideas suggested for Day to Serve include activities such as food drives, donating books and/or canned food to local libraries, environmental cleanup projects and asking communities to assess their needs while using Day to Serve as a call to action. Gov. McDonnell has challenged the commonwealth to double 2012 totals of 14,000 volunteers, 26,000 hours of service and 600,000 lbs. of food collected.

NVRC Chairman Robert W. Lazaro, Jr., the mayor of the Town of Purcellville, said, “a Day to Serve is a unique event that has inspired groups of people of our larger region to set aside their political, religious and cultural differences to strengthen our collective communities by caring for the poor and needy by addressing hunger and poverty.”

Governor McDonnell said in his proclamation, “more than 1 million individuals in Virginia rely upon food provided by members of the Federation of Virginia Food Banks annually. Members of the Federation of Virginia Food Banks distributed more than 70 million pounds of food in 2010 through its network of food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters and other community organizations. ”

The Day to Serve is a regional initiative embraced by the governors of Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia and the mayor of Washington, D.C. To learn more, visit http://www.daytoserve.org/ or call 804-225-4836. Local groups wishing to create a Day to Serve event, visit http://www.daytoserve.org/addyourevent.

NVRC’s programs and policies are established by the 25-member board of commissioners composed of elected officials appointed by the governing bodies of NVRC’s 14 member localities. NVRC is funded by annual contributions from member local governments, grants from the federal and the state government, other public and private entities and an appropriation from the Virginia General Assembly.