A free grocery store in a library chips away at food insecurity

She walked into Fairmount Heights Branch Library just after noon on a recent Wednesday, a little bit unsure of what to expect.

A few minutes later, Dontres Banks stepped out the door lugging a hefty Panera Bread tote bag filled with her favorite Sara Lee honey wheat bread, instant noodles and more in one hand and a new tote stuffed with other pantry staples on her right shoulder.

Banks, 38, didn’t expect to be in this position. She’s an assistant program manager for equal employment opportunity and diversity in the federal government, where she’s worked for 16 years. But the specter of further federal layoffs and cutbacks has been close to her mind as she wonders how to care for her family of four.

“My pay has been decreased,” said Banks, a Fairmount Heights resident. “I’ve applied for Medicaid and food stamps.

“This is all something I’ve never had to do before.”

Prince George’s County council member Shayla Adams-Stafford, who represents District 5, told The Banner she hopes the Fairmount Five Market, which opened May 28 in the library, will provide some security to residents such as Banks.

“When I was on the school board, we’d go to schools to help do food giveaways, and I’m talking about cafeterias filled with food. They’d be empty within 45 minutes to an hour,” Adams-Stafford said. “Hunger doesn’t look like someone with their hand out, right? It looks like a parent deciding not to eat so their kids can eat.

“I think that in this community, people have a lot of pride.”

The free market is the council’s partnership with Goodr, a Black woman-owned business that has helped address food accessibility issues by developing more than 30 grocery-like stores in 19 states. It is the company’s first Maryland location, which was funded by a $200,000 county grant, with another scheduled to open “in the coming weeks” in Prince George’s District 7, according to a news release.

Participants sign up online for designated time slots to shop for free groceries once a month. They can pick a select number of items from perishables ranging from apples and bananas to organic ground beef and turkey bacon, as well as shelf-stable items such as grains, juices and more. The market is open Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Around 160 Prince George’s residents have signed up and been approved based on need, according to county officials. They hope to allow participants to shop more frequently in the future but didn’t immediately have a timetable for when that would happen because of logistical and volunteer staffing hurdles that still need to be resolved. Officials didn’t share the specific requirements for interested participants, but they said those who lived near the library were prioritized because they consider Fairmount Heights a food desert and factored in age and household size, among other data.

Twelve percent of Prince George’s residents are food insecure, according to county data last collected in 2023. The Capital Area Food Bank’s “2025 Hunger Report” found 49% of its sample of county residents were experiencing food insecurity. The term is defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as “the limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.”

Adams-Stafford and her staff prioritized efforts and outreach to Fairmount Heights residents because of what they heard on the campaign trail during last year’s special election. She focused outreach for the market toward seniors because District 5 has the oldest population in the county, Adams-Stafford said.

“I was calling and knocking on doors in the Fairmount Heights community, and in my calls and discussions with my neighbors, I realized so many of our seniors were just kind of suffering in silence,” Adams-Stafford said.

“I remember one story in particular where a woman said she received Meals on Wheels and she was splitting those meals in half just to make it through the week.”

It also touches closer to home for Adams-Stafford. She recalled growing up in Columbia and being raised by a single mother.

“Sometimes while we were eating dinner, she would just watch us eat,” Adams-Stafford said. “She always would say it was because she wanted us to mind our manners.

“But I think sometimes she may have been trying to make the food last by not eating, and I think so many parents are dealing with that right now.”

That was top of mind for Banks as she thought about the rest of her day.

She was still trying to get clarification from county officials about how often she could visit the store and whether it’d require a reservation slot every time or she could drop in. Banks said that some of her haul would be meted out to her senior neighbors who don’t have the technical fluency to sign up for the program — she only heard about the market program through word of mouth from a friend.

Banks has been to more food pantries across the region recently and said they vary in quality, accessibility and cleanliness. The Washington, D.C., native figured that because she could only go to the Fairmount market once a month for now, she’d continue to follow a tip from her church community and make the trek to Calverton to another free food market.

For Banks, that community has been an essential resource in finding food and solace.

“I wake up every day and pray,” Banks said.

Have a tip for our Prince George’s County reporters? Tell us here.