Meet Our Members

The Port Angeles Food Bank

The Port Angeles Food Bank has been located in a City owned building for the past 14 years. Jessica Hernandez, Executive Director, has been with the food bank since January 2014. 



The food bank is open three days a week: Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 1-3:30 p.m. and serve on average 150 to 200 families each of their service days. They have no geographical restrictions to their program. 



When clients come into the food bank they are greeted by a newly painted mural by local tattoo artist Jimbo Cutler which depicts the journey of fruits and vegetables from being planted to harvest to consumption. 

Clients first receive a “line bag” which contains basic food items such as canned fruit, vegetables, pasta and a protein item like tuna. As clients move through the space they can chose from bakery products, add miscellaneous canned or boxed items to their bag, as well as protein and dairy items.

Then they reach the produce area where fruits and vegetables are artfully displayed on new display shelves donated by recently closed Albertsons. Clients can choose from fresh produce donated by local stores and businesses.  

The food bank also purchases food approximately $45,000 per year. The food bank receives food from Northwest Harvest and Food Lifeline in addition to many local stores and businesses in their community including two Wal-Marts, Costco, two Safeway stores and an Albertson store that is becoming a Haggen’s Foods.

Forty nine percent of all their donated food comes from the local Wal-Marts. The food bank also has a Back Pack program that serves five elementary schools and one

middle school in Port Angeles, and one K-12 school in Joyce, WA.

Meet Our Members: Lifelong AIDS Alliance & Chicken Soup Brigade

Last summer, Lifelong Aids Alliance food production and grocery packaging facility relocated to a new Meal Production Center in Georgetown, a neighborhood south of downtown Seattle.  This new location will allow Lifelong to increase their ability to produce 450,000 meals and 70,000 grocery bags within five years.  The new space increased the square footage of their kitchen by 250%.  With generous donations from many donors they were also able to buy new kitchen equipment such as large mixers, baking pans, bowls and utensils.  The move was made possible by a $500,000 challenge grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  An additional $1.5 million was raised to match this grant from generous foundations and donors.

The new space also includes a bright, colorful warehouse which is large enough to distribute 1.5 million pounds of food per year.  Their walk in food bank remains located in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.  Chicken Soup Brigade’s (LLAA food program name) clients have specific health challenges, such as HIV, diabetes, kidney disease, cancers, or disabling arthritis. Most are living below the Federal Poverty Level, and all require assistance in managing their nutritional health. Chicken Soup offers a comprehensive food and nutrition program designed not only to feed people but to nourish them.  Their motto that Food Is Medicine is enforced in the quality food programming they offer. 

Grocery Program: Bags of groceries include dairy and meats, fresh produce, a variety of easily prepared comfort foods, and tasty snacks. Last year, Chicken Soup Brigade provided food and nutrition services to 1,591 people in the Puget Sound region. They distributed 36,330 grocery bags and served 149,872 meals.

Meal Program: Homemade meals are prepared in their kitchen, and then are frozen for convenient reheating by their clients at a later time.  Most meals meet the nutritional guidelines of the American Heart Association and American Diabetes Association. Specialized meals meeting diets such as vegetarian, no gluten/no dairy or easy digestion are available. (To be eligible to receive these services, a client must be living with a chronic medical condition and meet some other specific criteria.)

They hope to in the near future create a community kitchen, which would increase access to healthy food by giving people the space, equipment, and help required to prepare nutritious meals.

Meet Our Members: Hopelink

Hopelink provides a strong web of support throughout the Eastern side of King County, with its emergency food services being an important component of its vital services.

With 6 different food bank sites serving their community, Hopelink’s a busy organization. WFC Board Member, Scott Milne, works as the Food Program Manager for all of these sites.

Hopelink has an incredibly wise approach to food banking, stating:

When a family doesn't have enough food - the most basic human need - stability in other areas is impossible. Hopelink provides food for survival and nutrition education for self-sufficiency.

While our food banks help families in crisis, we also believe in helping families to make lasting change by learning about nutrition, safe food handling, and budgeting for groceries.

The Kirkland food bank location is the hub of their emergency food services. This location is open 24 hours a week, and offers after-work hours to accommodate working families. They also offer home delivery for neighbors in their community who are home bound. This location serves about 1200 unique households in the Kirkland area.

Hopelink is aiming long term to continue their increase in fresh foods available to clients and they offer a dignified self-selection shopping model (based on family size) at their Kirkland location. At this location, they also have a large area for weighing, sorting, and storing food until it go out on the shelves or to another Hopelink location. Their shared inventory system among all the sites ensures efficiency and aims for minimizing food waste.

An upcoming event that creates a lot of excitement in the Hopelink food banks is their Christmas distribution program. On the 11^th of December, the staff and volunteers will begin transforming the food bank into a gift wonderland. Then, on December 18-23, families will be able to come ‘shop’ for gifts for the children in their home.

See more images from our visit below!

Meet Our Members: Puyallup Food Bank

The Washington State Fair festivities are only weeks away, but a visit to the great city of Puyallup isn't complete without learning about the fantastic community that keeps the nearby Puyallup Food Bank buzzing and vibrant.

This organization started in 1972 and has grown and evolved into a strong and sturdy fixture in the Puyallup community.

In addition to serving families who schedule service for food resources, Puyallup Food Bank also shares its inventory with nearby agencies and tribal sites. They give freely to smaller nearby food banks any product that they can't quickly use themselves. They also participate in the freezing nights program, to ensure safety for those most at risk due to adverse weather.

According to Bill Franklin, the Executive Director at Puyallup Food Bank, the best part of the organization lies in the 100+ volunteers that support the work in an environment that feels like one big family. Egos are left at the door, and they join together through a higher motivation to serve.
Bill has served at the food bank for 25 years, with 22 of those in the role as Executive Director. Keeping up with all the moving parts that it takes is one of the trickiest parts of his job, as logistics and scheduling is a massive undertaking for the well-oiled machine they run.

On September 5th, the opening day of the Washington State Fair, free admission will be offered to anyone who brings a donation of nonperishable food items. Monetary donations will also be welcomed. This is a great way to gain visibility for the hunger relief work being done in Puyallup as well as a vital source of support to keep that work going.

Learn more and donate here: http://www.puyallupfoodbank.org/donate/

Customers receive a shopping cart packed full of quality food on their visit.

Friendly volunteers at the food bank. 

Toiletries for clients as needed.

The ever-popular party room. Birthdays for children and Christmas are always celebrated.

Seattle Food Committee Van Tour 2014

Members of the Washington Food Coalition staff enjoyed the Seattle Food Committee 2014 Van Tour yesterday. We visited five Seattle agencies working to alleviate hunger in our community. Learning how each of these programs feeds hungry folks was intriguing and inspiring. Here are the sites we visited and a little of what we learned!

Ballard Food Bank:

The tour began in the waiting room of the Ballard Food Bank. We sat in the comfy chairs and enjoyed our breakfast goodies while Jen Muzia, the new executive director, greeted us and told us about the food bank’s operations. Next we entered a big room full of shelves, refrigerators, freezers and shopping carts. The Ballard Food Bank has recently adopted the shopping model for food distribution where food bank customers have a choice between products and a cart to put them in. Along with this awesome supermarket style food bank, the Ballard Food Bank provides many other important services. They offer hygiene products, baby supplies, emergency financial assistance and their address. This means that folks who do not have a home address can have their mail sent to the Ballard Food Bank and then come pick it up!

YouthCare at the Orion Center:

Next we travelled downtown to visit the local non-profit YouthCare. YouthCare not only feeds healthy food to hungry youth, but also provides job training, assists in GED certification, mental health and substance abuse counseling, legal help, and sleeps about 20 youth on the floor every night. 363 youth in Seattle utilized their services this month, and since 2007 the amount of homeless youth has doubled. YouthCare does street outreach to provide basic necessities to youth on the street and promote their services. The focus of YouthCare is to create mentoring relationships with youth to foster health, learning and self-sufficiency.  

Millionair Club Charity:

Right around lunchtime we travelled over to the Millionair Club Charity. Similar to YouthCare, the Millionair Club is designed to train folks to get jobs. Getting someone a job is their main focus, which is then followed by securing permanent housing. But to get a job one needs to “break barriers” that hard times can bring on. The Millionair Club helps people develop basic job skills- like resume building, meet health needs- like the need for glasses, and get hunger off of their minds by filling their bellies. The Millionair Club has served over 11 million meals since its creation in 1921. Virtually all of their food is donated through corporate partnerships and their hydroponic garden in the basement. 51% of their participants attended college in their lives, so the Millionair Club truly helps one restart when life has dealt a very unfortunate hand of cards.

St. Vincent de Paul:

The tour then caravanned south to St. Vincent de Paul. Their large space is a valuable asset in the emergency food world and they filled it with a high-tech food distribution setup and many other services. They have a computerized barcode database system which stores the name of the customer, their zip code and family size for quick registration and help getting food. They also have a helpline which refers people in need to resources to help with rent, utilities and food. Housed under the same roof is also their legal help center. One very valuable piece of infrastructure is their refrigerated truck, which can be plugged in to keep perishables and produce good over the weekend before distribution. The tour members were a “protip”- a food bank needs to have a good friendly driver who is in-tune and invested in the food bank. This way they can help procure the best food through valuable relationships.

White Center Food Bank and Garden:

Our last stop was the White Center Food Bank and their Giving Garden. We entered the comfortable and welcoming waiting room and learned about the history and day to day functioning of the food bank. One special program we learned about is their Healthy Food Gift Certificate (see picture). These certificates are worth $5 in produce, and are wildly successful. White Center Food Bank really focuses on healthy and quality foods for their customers. They purchase meats, eggs and dairy and even grow some of their own produce! In between the food distribution building and the baby pantry building is a series of raised beds blooming with life. To ensure that fresh vegetables and fruit can become a part of anyone’s lifestyle, the food bank offers a series of cooking classes designed using the food currently available to customers. The White Center Food Bank identified less mobile elderly individuals as a population in need of their services, and has outfitted a mobile food bank truck to deliver food. In all, the White Center Food Bank offers outstanding assistance to people of all ages.

It was truly inspiring to see all of the work being done around Seattle to keep people fed and healthy. And the breadth of other services that these agencies offered in conjunction with food assistance is remarkable. Thank you to the Seattle Food Committee for organizing this event!