ST. PAUL, Va. – The Dominion Foundation has awarded a $15,000 grant to Feeding America-Southwest Virginia to help support the regional food bank’s feeding programs in Virginia’s coalfield counties. The Dominion Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Dominion Resources Inc., the parent firm of Dominion Virginia Power.

Since 2008, when Dominion began construction on its Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center in Wise County, the Dominion Foundation has donated $130,000 to Feeding America-Southwest Virginia and its predecessor Southwest Virginia Second Harvest Food Bank. Dominion Virginia Power has also donated a surplus SUV to the food bank, which has offices in Abingdon and Salem.

“We can think of no-better use for our giving dollars than to put them to work helping to feed the hungry … particularly the hungry children of Southwest Virginia,” said Station Director Preston Sloane. Sloane presented this year’s grant award to Edd Roberts, major gifts officer for Feeding America.

“We appreciate Dominion’s continuing support for our programs,” Roberts said, adding that Feeding America is making a special appeal to its supporters this year because of increased costs for food distribution and the uncertainty of federal support through the Farm Bill that is currently tied up in Congress.

Feeding America currently supplies 13 million meals annually to the hungry in Southwest Virginia, Roberts said. Since 2008, Feeding America Southwest Virginia has seen a 57 percent increase in food distributed and a 52 percent increase in households served, he said.

Dominion is one of the nation's largest producers and transporters of energy, with a portfolio of approximately 27,000 megawatts of generation, 11,000 miles of natural gas transmission, gathering and storage pipeline and 6,400 miles of electric transmission lines.  Dominion operates one of the nation's largest natural gas storage systems with 947 billion cubic feet of storage capacity and serves retail energy customers in 15 states. For more information about Dominion, visit the company's website at www.dom.com.