Testimony For Governor's Budget Hearing

Below is an excellent testimony crafted to be shared at tonight's Governor Budget Hearing in Spokane by our board member, Scott Hallett. It is most definitely worth sharing....

My name is Scott Hallett and I work for a non profit agency called the Council on Aging & Human Services in Whitman County. I administer food programs, commodity distributions and food banks at a job I was able to take because I am retired from USDA.
Through our emergency commodity distribution and food bank programs we currently serve approximately 700 families each month. Our recipients are roughly 1/3 children and 1/3 senior citizens, with the balance being mostly single parents of the children.Most of the parents work, they just don’t make enough money to meet all of the family needs.
In our state/country, as bad as things have become, there is still no excuse for people not getting enough food to eat. According to USDA figures, we actually waste approximately 25% of the food that we produce, but much of that food can be salvaged and used to feed those that don’t have enough food. Both parties in the legislature have done much to ensure that people are fed through their funding of the Emergency Food Assistance Program and other efforts. These are the programs most needed when so many people have lost their jobs or have been downsized into lower paying jobs. People still have to eat.
I would suggest that we not implement an across the board reduction in state services, but rather continue to constructively evaluate programs and make the reductions where the impact will have the least impact on the basic services and needs of our people. Certainly adequate food is one of the most basic of all needs.
I would further suggest that we look closely at the programs that the federal government funds in our state and continue to provide the required match for those programs to ensure that we continue to receive those federal funds. Especially for food programs.
It makes no sense to economize by saving relatively small amounts of money that are currently actually bringing money into our state in the form of federal dollars. Matching funds are an investment, not an expenditure, when the resulting increase is many times the actual cost to the state.
You will have many suggestions today and in the days to come. I would ask that you continue to provide food to those that need it, especially the children and the seniors that have little or no control over the amount of money that they have to spend on food.
I will leave you with a short story that has had a large impact on me. At one of our food banks, I walked down the row of individuals standing in line, making small talk with them in an attempt to make the feel welcome. As I greeted the adults with a smile and asked “how are you?” the answer was almost always the same “fine”. I bent down to a young girl of about age 5 and said with a big smile on my face “so, how are you today?”
Her answer was shockingly truthful. She looked at me and in a small, but strong voice full of seriousness said “hungry.” As a parent that answer would have devastated me if it had been my child. We need to eliminate that as an answer.

Much thanks to Foster Farms!

Foster Farms chose Washington Food Coalition as the beneficiary at their booth during the Bite of Seattle. We are so grateful to be chosen and honored by the donations of the public as well as the matching donation by Foster Farms, totaling $1035.70!

Meet Our Members - Valley Food Bank

Valley Food Bank is a program of the Spokane Valley Partners organization. This food bank has been operating for nearly 30 years. In 1987 it was officially organized, and it merged with Spokane Valley Partners in 1995.

Recently the food bank completed their brand new food warehouse extension. They can now keep all their food under one roof.
Their new forklift weighs the food as it comes in saving tons of lifting and time. Deliveries are out of the parking lot, alongside the building and under cover. The walk-in cooler allows them to give out over ten times the perishable fruits and vegetables compared to years past. The extra disbursement space has really reduced the operational stress and smoothed out the customer flow, further allowing for intake of up to three families at a time. Everything is on one level saving time and volunteer energy.
The stainless steel, four shelf, carts have proven very popular when it comes to disbursing food, re-filling shelves and storing food in either the freezer or the cooler. The only problem there is that they need about twice as many as they have. They also are looking forward to the time when they can afford to sprinkler the building (for fire safety), that will then allow them to utilize the top shelf of the pallet racks, a code requirement that they will need to meet in the future.

Currently, the Valley Food Bank serves about 1000 households per month with volunteers bringing in 1200 hours per month!

Recipes for Success - Need Food?

This Recipe for Success is from ROOF Community Services in Rochester.

NEED FOOD?

Are you operating a small food bank in a rural area or small town? Do you struggle to find donations because your service area has very infrastructure in place? Do you feel stuck because your food bank is located in an area where access to food resources including grocery stores is limited and it feels like clients out number donors 100 to 1?

ROOF Community Services, located in Rochester, grapples with these issues every day. Rochester is an unincorporated area of Thurston County about 30 miles south of Olympia. There is no public transportation, no large corporations or companies, no city government and very few social services offered in the area. This one-stoplight town has a population of 11,000 and over 50% of the children qualify for free or reduced price lunches at school.

Because of our limited resources, the staff at ROOF Community Services have become very good at forming partnerships and soliciting donations. Hopefully one of these ideas will work in your community to benefit your food bank and its clients.

During the summer months, communities often have some sort of community celebration. These festivals might include a parade, carnival, pancake or spaghetti feed and a place for people to congregate. Use this opportunity to advertise you food bank. Set up booth along the parade route or better yet enter the parade and push empty grocery carts down the street while advertising your hours of operation and what foods are most needed at the food bank. Make it easy for the community to find you by passing out flyers with your address or donation drop box sites and give them a list of commonly needed items such as soups, peanut butter, and tuna. If parade applications are mailed out in advance to participants, ask the organizers of they would be willing to sponsor a food drive at the parade check-in table and include a food drive flyer with each application. Have collection bins available that day for parade participants to donate canned goods.

Throughout the summer, fresh veggies are plentiful so work with local growers, backyard gardeners and farmer’s markets to inform them that food banks need their surplus. Before growers start planting, ask them to plant an extra row specifically for the food bank. Maple Lane School, a local juvenile detention center in Rochester, planted a garden with the intent of growing food for the needy and teaching the boys skills they could use for the rest of their lives. The inmates, who were eager to spend time outside learned about gardening and giving back to the community. The half-acre garden produced over 37,000 pounds of fresh organic produce for the ROOF Food Bank.

Joining the local Chamber or attending community meetings such as Rotary or Lions Clubs can benefit your food bank as well. Be active in school events too. For example, Parent-Teacher organizations might offer to organize a food drive at a dance or in the school. School community information nights are a great way to advertise your needs as well. Ask school officials to speak to civic or extra curricular clubs about hosting food drives and make them class competitions. In the fall, have a “Food Bowl” football game against the rival high school where each school collects food during the football season. This would benefit two food banks in small communities. Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, and 4-H clubs and churches love doing projects that benefit their communities too.

Don’t wait for the holidays to remind folks that there are hungry people in your community. Make it a part of what you do everyday. Staff and volunteers are great advocates for the need they see on a daily basis. Once the word gets out about the needs of your food bank, you will be amazed by the support your will receive.

News & Events - Opportunities to Advocate

Opportunity #1: Attend Budget Hearings
1st Opportunity: Be Present at Budget Meetings
Governor Gregoire has scheduled public input opportunities (PDF) on the upcoming biennial budget in advance of her office's 2011-2012 budget proposal development.
For every representative at these meetings, we are streamlining and consolidating our talking points to show a unified voice for feeding the hungry in Washington. Below is the information on what the Advocacy Committee has put together to have each representative talk about...

Background information and talking points:

The budget “hearings” are going to offer only a small amount of time for testimony. It’s key to start out your comments by putting the state budget in context. Here are thoughts from the Budget and Policy Center on how to begin testimony and some detailed information on Basic Food administrative funding if you want to mention it. Most important is a statement to the Governor and OFM that we continue to call for a balanced approach to managing the budget process, not an all-cuts budget.



1. The budget is a statement of the things we hold dear about our state and where we are going together as Washingtonians. The last several years have seen these essential public functions reduced in ways that are harming our communities. As (anti-hunger advocates, emergency food providers, WIC clinic folks, concerned citizens) we have seen the impact of reduced state services in our communities.

2. Certainly, the state should operate efficiently, but in addressing the budgetary impacts of the national recession, we cannot let the sole response be to further erode important needs from being met. Public systems are essential to insuring that Washington’s families have the support they need in these tough economic times.

3. We need balanced and thoughtful management that looks for opportunities and prioritizes according to our values, like educating our children and helping the friends and neighbors who are struggling in this economy.

4. Because most key anti-hunger programs are primarily federally funded, it is essential that state systems remain adequate and committed to insuring that struggling families can access these programs. We are particularly concerned that this year the Legislature supplanted $10 million in state funding and its federal match for administration of the Basic Food (food stamp) Program with one-time federal funds. These funds must be replaced in the 2011-13 biennial budget. The state has earned a $3 million bonus for its administration of the program; these funds can be matched and would go a long way toward restoring needed administrative dollars.
(Updates to the budget process will be posted on http://www.ofm.wa.gov/budget/default.asp)

Opportunity #2: Invite your Member of Congress to a district meeting or site visit
Every year from early August to Labor Day, members of Congress travel their districts to learn about the issues facing their constituents firsthand. This presents an incredible opportunity both to show the important work your food bank is doing and to elevate key priorities before Congress.

Winner of the FREE printer contest

We held a drawing today for a FREE printer from WFC! Those eligible were the first 20 agencies to re-new their WFC membership for the 2010-2011 fiscal year.
The WINNER = Centralia Food Bank!

Thanks to Barb & Kris from the Des Moines Area Food Bank for conducting the drawing!

Meet Our Members - NW Harvest Warehouse

Located in a commercial area in Kent, the Northwest Harvest Warehouse is an impressive facility that makes one proud of the work that they are doing. This warehouse is huge in its size, capability and capacity while still being meticulously clean and well run.
The warehouse is incredibly volunteer friendly, boasting over 700,000 annual volunteer hours served per year, a volunteer's lounge including lockers, and sorting facilities designed to keep over 70 volunteers busy at one time in each room.

Thanks to Josh Fogt and Vikki Thompson for a friendly and informative tour of the facility.









More about the warehouse:
• Proximity to I-5 corridor: less than 2 miles
• Number of loading docks: 10
• Total square footage: 94,225 square feet
• Onsite refrigerated and freezer storage
• Storage capacity for 1,320,000 cubic feet of goods

Above: This is the main sorting area for produce where volunteers separate large bulk quantities into sizes for individual families.


Above: An example of pasta that was sorted and bagged by volunteers, now on its way to feed hungry families in Chelan.


Above: A recently added racking system quadrupled the capabilities for the amount of food that can be stored in the warehouse.

Learn more about NW Harvest and the work they do by clicking here

News & Events - Michael Nye Announced as Keynote Speaker at Annual WFC Conference

We are so thrilled to announce that Michael Nye will be our keynote speaker at the Washington Food Coalition's Annual Conference.
Michael recently launched his art exhibit "About Hunger & Resilience". Here's some information about his exhibit:

In Michael Nye’s exhibition About Hunger & Resilience, so much comes to light. The fifty portraits and audio stories reveal the courage and fragility of those individuals who have experienced hunger. In simple, eloquent detail, these voices and images draw you closer into their lives.

For the past 4 ½ years, Michael has been listening and asking questions about hunger. Why does it happen? What can we learn from them?

Stories have a way of illuminating issues with an elemental and engaging power. These diverse audio narratives take us underneath complicated issues where empathy and understanding begin.

Each face, each voice invites you to listen.

More about Michael:

Michael Nye lives in downtown San Antonio. He practiced law for 10 years before pursuing photography full time. Recipient of a Mid-America National Endowment for the Arts grant in photography, and a Kronkosky Foundation grant, he participated in two Arts America tours in the Middle East and Asia, and has exhibited and lectured widely in museums and universities, including Morocco, India and Mexico.

His journeys to photograph around the world included projects in Russian Siberia, Iraq after the first Gulf War, Palestine, China and Labrador.

His photography and audio exhibitions, "Children of Children" (stories of teenage pregnancy) and "Fine Line: Mental Health/Mental Illness" have traveled to over 130 cities in the United States and continue to tour.

"About Hunger & Resilience" debuted at the Witte Museum in San Antonio in 2010. He is married to writer Naomi Shihab Nye and they have one son, Madison.

Learn more about Michael Nye's exhibit and experience excerpts from his exhibit here.