The Northwest Community Food Pantry in Van Ness is a food bank that serves 200-240 households weekly. It has been running for two years, supplying food and cleaning supplies to low-income residents in the neighborhood. 

The food is sourced and saved from all over DC, getting its main supply of food from the Capital Area Food Bank. Director of the NW Community Food Pantry, Judith Ingram says that, “we receive about 3,000 pounds of produce a week from the Capital Food Bank [we get more from other sources].” However, the food is also sourced by collecting leftovers from local farmer’s markets such as the UDC farmer’s market and relies on donations to fill in the gaps. 

On top of that, the pantry is run entirely by volunteers looking to make a difference in their community. Each week, food is delivered to the pantry to be sorted and inventoried on Fridays and Saturdays with about 10 volunteers. Sundays are distribution days, where five stations are set up to give out different categories of food and other necessities, working with about 40 volunteers spread over shifts to work to provide the best services possible. This is also the day that hundreds of households come to receive goods. The volunteers work efficiently to hand out the supplies, but also make sure to be courteous and respectful.

The food bank was started by Ingram, a long time volunteer for the Food Rescue US program in DC. After volunteering for the Ward 3 Mutual Aid program made for food insecure households during COVID-19 and trying to find a better solution to giving out food to people in the neighborhood, she created the pantry in May 2021. The pantry is located in a closed Walgreens building that is owned by and right across from UDC. With data from The Capital Area Food Bank, saying that this area was the most food insecure area of Ward 3 and help from the Advisory Neighborhood Commission, the building was able to be occupied by the pantry. This process took months because the building is still property of UDC, so it took pressure to get the loan. Through connections Ingram made in the community, food was able to be sourced from aforementioned locations, as well as other stores like Trader Joes and Wegmans that have left over food that can be brought to the bank.

Simply put by Ingram, the pantry aims to “focus on combating food insecurity which means helping families and individuals that don’t necessarily know where their next meal is coming from.” On top of this, after learning that food stamps cannot cover cleaning supplies, such materials are gathered at the pantry through generous donations to give away.

Not only does the pantry bring supplies to people, it also brings them together. Volunteering creates a community of people of all age ranges, from retired people to adults with a free weekend to high school students. Sophomore volunteer Andrew Dellabella says that his favorite part of volunteering is “all the different people you meet, all from different places in a similar community that share the same values.”