New Food Bank Building Increases Food Security on Orcas

Joyce and Larry Shaw outside the new Food Bank building on the grounds of the Orcas Island Community Church

By Mindy Kayl

It has been almost three years since the food bank moved to the lower level of the Orcas Island Community Church and every Tuesday in the Fellowship Hall, a small army of volunteers has packed grocery bags and served their customers with compassion and respect.

There is a warm sense of community, but there is also the heavy weight of need.  The growing need did not go unnoticed.

Support for a new building that could respond to that need started with an anonymous grant of $50,000 that challenged the community to raise money for a dedicated Food Bank Building. Just in time for Thanksgiving last year, islanders met the challenge by donating $70,000. The Orcas Island Community Church is continuing its support by leasing space for the building for $1 per year for the next ten years.

Joyce and Larry Shaw, co–directors of the Food Bank, beamed as they explained the building will be open in about four weeks. It still needs sidewalks, disability access ramps, a porch and landscaping. The new building will provide, much-needed office space and food storage. There will be an open house soon, date and time to be announced.

The food bank services will not change. It will be open on Tuesdays from 12:30 to 2 p.m. and Thursdays from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Hot meals on Tuesday will still be provided in the Community Church basement and are prepared by volunteers from the island churches.

One volunteer, Jerry Baker said, “I volunteer because I want to help, I know them and they are friends of mine.”  Baker has seen the accessibility of the food bank transfrom from the small, shack-like building on OPALCO property to a warm safe church basement and now into its own building in less than three years.  Baker also said, “It has been a multiplication of benefit all due to community effort.”

For the last three years, 80 to 120 families have been using the food bank; this translates to approximately 400 children and adults.  The reasons for needing food assistance vary from loss of jobs to underemployment, illness and mounting medical bills.

Statistics from a 2008 San Juan County study show that the county has a three percent food insecurity rate.  Food insecurity means you don’t know what you will be eating for dinner or how you will pay for it; or that you do not have something safe and healthy to eat, that you have missed meals for lack of available food and you are hungry.

Orcas Island is not alone, many U.S. households are food insecure, “In 2009, 50.2 million Americans lived in food insecure households, 33 million adults and 17.2 million children, according to the non-profit organization Feeding America at https://feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/hunger-facts/hunger-and-poverty-statistics.aspx.

So what is food security?  The USDA definition of “food security for a household” means access by all members at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life. Food security includes at a minimum (1) the ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, and (2) an assured ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways (that is, without resorting to emergency food supplies, scavenging, stealing, or other coping strategies).”

The hard work of many, combined with donations of time and resources, has helped the food bank deliver food to many island neighbors, the problem is significant and is not going away.  Hunger on Orcas Island is a reality.  If you have resources continue to share, if you are a volunteer, thank you very much for your work and if you are hungry, there is help.

To see the results of the 2008 county study, go to: https://www.foodlifeline.org/hunger/resources/documents/SanJuan_web.pdf.