West Nova News

Nominated this year for the Loudoun County Chamber of Commerce’s Stronger Together category, the Ampersand Pantry Project has taken a unique approach to respond to food insecurity in the community.

Gabriela Lamas, the Ampersand Pantry project coordinator, told the West Nova News that it was validating, as a new organization, to be recognized by the chamber.

“To be nominated and recognized, being such a new organization, was definitely a great feeling, and it means we’re doing something right,” Lamas said.

The Ampersand Pantry started April of last year, initially providing lunches at their Leesburg location on Market Street, she said. Lunch still starts there every day at 11:30 a.m.

As they have received feedback from the community, they have offered a lot more than just food, such as giving away diapers, which are not covered by some assistance programs.

“We give out fresh vegetables, feminine hygiene products, non-perishables, etc.,” she said.

They have also been able to open two additional locations in Leesburg, one on Edwards Ferry Road and another on Harrison Street, she said.

“Those are basically little pantry boxes where we stock, daily, non-perishables, and then we have attached two tables to each one to do daily food and diaper distributions as well,” Lamas said.

They have also had special projects over Thanksgiving and Christmas, she said.

“For Thanksgiving, we were able to feed 127 families, and it was the full Thanksgiving dinner,” she said. “Those 127 families were equivalent to 596 people.”

They also had a Santa’s Workshop event, pairing 408 children with local donors to fulfill their Christmas gift requests, she said.

And in meeting requests, the Ampersand Pantry has done well to respond to the needs their clients have expressed.

“Originally, we were just doing lunches, and then we got some people coming through, some of our recipients that we’ve known for months, asking about diapers because they would come with their kids,” she said.

Founder Peter Burnett made the executive decision to add diapers to the giveaways, she said.

“To date, we’ve given out over 300,000 diapers to our community,” Lamas said. “People come just as much for those diapers as they do for the lunches.”

That also spurred the inclusion of items, such as feminine hygiene products, that people needed, she said.

“Really anything we can give out to help people of all different ages,” she said. They even give out pet food on Saturdays to clients who come with their pets.

Lamas said that the Ampersand Pantry takes donations, including direct monetary contributions, such as through their GoFundMe page.

“We also accept checks, cash, anything dropped off to our location. We are open seven days a week,” Lamas said. “We also are always in need of diapers, especially the larger sizes, 4-through-6. We go through those pretty quickly.”