||| FROM ORCAS ISLAND FOOD BANK |||
This article published in the national publication,Food Bank News, cites Orcas Island Food Bank, along with Feeding Tampa Bay, as organizations working to eliminate the stigma that keeps many people away from food banks, at a cost to their nutrition.
OIFB executive director Amanda Sparks credits feedback from our Latinx/Hispanic customers and Alimentando al Pueblo (Feeding the Village), the first food bank in our state to provide culturally appropriate food for Latinx/Hispanic customers, for helping us learn how to better serve the Orcas Latinx/Hispanic community. Amanda also points out that our Latinx/Hispanic customers appreciate fresh raw ingredients AND prepared meals.
Your support has helped OIFB create programs that influence national and state food-assistance agencies and policies. This is the second time OIFB has been mentioned in Food Bank News. Amanda has also been invited to speak at a board meeting of Food Lifeline, which supplies food to 350 organizations in western Washington. She helped write the Washington Food Coalition’s nutrition policy guidelines, spoke at the Coalition’s conference in 2021, and has been invited to present again this year.
