A food pantry for employees who’ve lost out on pay, or their jobs altogether, due to the coronavirus pandemic has been started by the Transportation Security Administration at Reagan National Airport. Airport employees are a casualty of the industry-wide decline wrought by COVID-19’s effect on travel businesses as a whole.
A TSA employee poses with some of the canned goods and cleaning supplies that the food pantry is offering at Reagan National Airport
According to wtop.com, "The Pantry” stocks food and toiletries, such as cereal, evaporated milk, soup, pasta, pasta sauce, Ramen noodles, canned meats, macaroni and cheese, toothpaste, soap, laundry detergent, feminine products, diapers, deodorant, and other goods. Staff bring their own bags to the food pantry and give their shopping list to an off-duty TSA employee, who then fills it up with their selected items. Others are trading in things they have in excess, such as one woman who brought cans of carrots that her kids didn’t want and got rice in exchange for them."
As per wtop.com, "The TSA officers themselves are making sure the pantry stays stocked. Employee Kavita Harvin has donated beans, rice, canned goods, bottled water, and hygiene products. She even volunteers to work the pantry for two hours before the start of her shift. The pantry first opened on April 24 and runs for a few hours every weekday. The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority provides the space for the pantry in Terminal A, across the hall from the TSA’s lost and found office."
