Finding Food in Foggy Bottom

Food provided by the Capital Area Food Bank waits in a storage room at The United Church to be distributed to Foggy Bottom food pantries.

HANNAH TRAVERSE

On the second and fourth Saturday of every month, people start lining up outside The United Church in Foggy Bottom at 5 a.m. They come with shopping carts, shopping bags and rolling suitcases.

Most people in line have to change buses, take the Metro and walk numerous blocks to get to the church, but the effort is worth it: On these Saturdays, the church’s basement is transformed into the Foggy Bottom Food Pantry. Congregants from The United Church,located at the corner of G Street and 20th Street, NW, founded the pantry in 1981. Thirty-one years later, the pantry continues to provide free groceries to anywhere from 140 to 310 households twice a month.

“This is one of the best pantries there is,” said Donald Ford, a Southeast resident who started coming to the Foggy Bottom pantry about six years ago. “I love it because I only get $16 worth of food stamps a month, so I need all the help I can get. I’ve got a lot of cabinet space at home; now almost all of it is filled with canned goods.”

When the pantry is in operation, some 35 volunteers arrive at the church around 9 a.m. to pack nonperishable food into easily distributed boxes and bags. Each family that visits the pantry receives two paper bags of groceries packed in a cardboard box. Individuals receive a single paper bag of food, and each person without access to a kitchen receives a plastic bag with ready- to-eat food. Volunteers make sure that each box or bag contains a variety of products, such as a sleeve of cookies or crackers, juice, several cans of vegetables, canned fruit, a bag of egg noodles, a bag of dried beans, a few cans of soup, and/or canned chicken.

“A lot of people don’t realize that when you’re on a low income and you’re paying for lights, rent, a cell phone, money gets stretched thin,” said Jose Castillo, a Foggy Bottom Food Pantry client. “Places like this are really beneficial.”

Bread wrapped in plastic and displayed on a folding table.
Photo by Hannah Traverse

In addition to the canned and boxed food, pantry clients can select two types of meat and one box of cereal. They can also pick whatever they want from a selection of fresh produce, and they may each take one item from a selection of breads and pastries donated by Panera Bread, Caribou Coffee and Starbucks. Clients who cannot make it down the stairs to the distribution area wait on the sidewalk outside the church George Madill, the main organizer of the pantry, estimates that each box of food contains about $80 worth of groceries – enough to last about a week for a family of four. The two distributions cost the pantry about $3,000 a month, or about $5 per bag. Most of the food comes from the Capital Area Food Bank, which charges $0.19 per pound for salvaged products from area grocery stores. Additionally, the food bank provides the pantry with free fresh produce and other free food from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Madill, who started volunteering at the pantry nearly 29 years ago, usually collects food from the food bank using his own van. “It’s work, but it’s fun,” said Madill. “The volunteers and the clients are inspiring in themselves. They always have a good word. I think it’s almost like family around here.”

Funding for the pantry comes from numerous places, including grants from the International Monetary Fund and the Feinstein Foundation, contributions from George Washington University student groups and benefits from the Washington Sängerbund’s annual Christmas concert.

Pantry volunteers also represent a variety of backgrounds: Many come from HandsOn Greater DC Cares; some are parishioners at The United Church; some are students at GW; some are employees at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, two organizations headquartered next door to the church.

“I realized how incredibly fortunate I was to be able to have a salary and be able to buy food…. This was one way I could help out,” said Sher Sandusky, an IMF employee who started volunteering at the pantry 10 years ago. “It’s one of the best-run organizations to volunteer for.”

In order to receive food from the Pantry, every year the clients must fill out a form listing their name, address (which must be in the District of Columbia), total monthly income and case numbers if they receive any kind of welfare. The pantry also takes an annual survey of the clientele to make sure that their needs are met.

Clients cannot choose which canned and boxed goods they receive, but most leave behind what they do not plan to eat. Clients also wait outside the church after they have been served so that they can exchange products with each other. “I’m so grateful for places like this,” said Walter Sander, a retired Northwest resident who recently started coming to the pantry. “I’m on a fixed income – don’t get that much. This helps out a lot. Whatever they give, I’m blessed to receive it. A dollar saved is a dollar earned.”


Issues |Hunger


Region |Foggy Bottom|Northwest|Ward 2|Washington DC

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