Arlington library abruptly closes popular food pantry
The note was a surprise. Roxanne Davis had just arrived at Arlington Public Library’s Central Library location with a car loaded with donated food. But before she could begin filling the shelves of the free pantry located outside the main entrance, she saw the message from library staff.
“As of September 29, 2023, the Little Free Food Pantry located at Central Library will close,” it read, before offering information on alternative food distribution sites in the area.
“My first thought was I was devastated that this resource would not be available to the community,” said Davis, who since last spring has been among the small group of volunteers that regularly stock the pantry. “I was certainly disappointed that no one had reached out to us.”
Library officials, however, remained adamant in the decision.
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“The Little Free Pantry at Central Library is not a sustainable model for assisting those in need in Arlington,” Anneliesa Alprin, communications manager for the Arlington Public Library, said in a statement. “The library does not have the staff capacity, expertise, or knowledge necessary to implement an effective, quality, sustainable food pantry that meets best practices.”
The removal of a centrally located and popular food pantry comes as the region continues to deal with a stubborn hunger problem in the wake of the pandemic.
According to the Capital Area Food Bank’s Hunger Report 2023, 32 percent of the region’s population is food insecure, a single percentage point lower than the previous year. In Arlington, the current food insecurity rate is 17 percent.
The free pantry at the Central Library started in fall 2020 as a service project for a local Boy Scout working toward the rank of Eagle Scout. In the years since, local volunteers like Davis, 56, cleaned, stocked and monitored the pantry. The shelves are restocked with donations daily because the location is popular, Davis said.
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“The library is already a resource for people who have financial or food insecurity,” she said. “If they are living in a shelter, they might come here during the day to be in air conditioning. Or they might be here to look at the internet for resources or to contact family. So a lot of the population facing food insecurity is already here.”
There are programs to provide food to youth at close to half of the 17,496 libraries in the U.S., and programs to distribute food to adults at about a third, according to the Urban Libraries Council.
Davis, a resident of Arlington’s Rock Spring neighborhood who is currently starting a garden consulting business, said the pantry’s no-barrier access policy has also contributed to its popularity. For individuals sleeping in shelters who don’t have meals during the day, the pantry is in an easy-to-find location. For hungry families who may be undocumented, the pantry requires no sign-in or identification. For people who are sensitive about who knows they are having trouble finding food, the pantry is open at all hours. She estimated it served about 200 regular clients.
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Volunteers have also developed relationships with regulars, Davis said. The volunteers outfitted the pantry with a whiteboard so people could write down requests for specific food and items. “The pantry supports people who fall through the cracks and aren’t getting resources from other places,” Davis said.
The pantry’s physical structure was in need of repair, Davis admitted. But the volunteers had people lined up to do the necessary repairs. Library officials, however, did not respond to the offer, according to Davis. Structural issues were one of the reasons cited by library officials behind the decision to close the pantry.
“Several factors contributed to making this difficult decision, among them our inability to monitor the Pantry to ensure its structural stability, food safety of the contents, public health standards in keeping it rodent and pest-free, and appropriate usage,” Alprin said in the library’s statement. “It was a difficult decision, but one the Library leadership agreed was a necessary one.”
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The Central Library branch will continue to accept food donations inside the building.
On Thursday, the pantry’s last day of operation, a middle-aged woman named Gladys carefully placed some items from the shelves into her purse before entering the library.
“I think that the food here is much fresher than the other places where you can go pick up free groceries,” said Gladys, who declined to give her full name when talking about her food insecurity. She mentioned that she had been directed to other local food distributions in the past but often found spoiled food.
“Everyone knows that the food here at the library is good,” she said. “This pantry gets emptied out fast.”
Gladys was not sure where she would go for food once the library pantry was removed. “It’s a shame that they are going to close it," she said. “You can be rich, you can be poor, you can be homeless, but the food is still here and for everyone.”
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