The Food Bank is handing out food to all who show up, but it needs more helping hands

A couple of weeks ago, the Thurston County Food Bank received a shipment of pork loins from a federal program that subsidizes farmers by buying up their surpluses. A tariff dispute with China had led to an oversupply of pork.

Now domestic pork prices are about to rise because of recent shutdowns in meat packing plants that were the sites of COVID-19 outbreaks.

This week, the Food Bank received oranges, milk, eggs and apples from the federal government, but federal meat supplies have become unpredictable. Fortunately, local grocers also donate frozen meat.

The mix of donations from local grocery stores also has changed because of the public’s pandemic-driven changes in buying habits. Food Bank Executive Director Robert Coit finds some of those changes puzzling.

“Some people are stocking up as if they are preparing for an earthquake, or stocking a bomb shelter,” he says. They are scooping up canned goods rather than fresh vegetables, and buying bottled water “even though there is absolutely no reason to believe that municipal water systems or other public utilities are under any threat.”

Now the Food Bank has to buy canned goods, which are typically donated from food drives, because food drives — notably the big annual drive usually held by the post office in May — have been canceled. Now Coit says, “We can’t buy Top Ramen, but we can get canned beef stew; we can’t get chicken soup, but we can get canned chili, because manufacturers are focusing on higher-end, higher profit margin products.”

At the same time, after a pause while grocery distribution centers figured out they had less demand for fresh vegetables, Coit says, “Now we’re swimming in fresh product and can’t give it out fast enough.”

These changes come at a time when the Food Bank faces an overwhelming increase in demand, and when a burgeoning number of vulnerable seniors and people with underlying health conditions need home deliveries of food.

Social distancing also has required re-engineering how in-person Food Bank services are organized. Instead of having people come inside and choose from its stock, volunteers are now packing boxes and handing them out to people who drive or walk up. And it has opened six pop-up locations, in different places on different days. News about those dates, times and locations are announced on its Facebook page.

“Right now, every day is like a week” in terms of demand for food, shifts in supplies, and workload for Food Bank volunteers and staff, says Coit. Partly because of the absence of food drives, but mostly because of huge demand, they’ve already used up the entire $250,000 budgeted for purchased food this year.

When the pandemic hit, many of the retired people who were regular Food Bank volunteers needed to stay home to be safe. A new wave of volunteers came, but they are wearing out, and there is a big need for new recruits to sort supplies, pack boxes and hand them out.

And of course there’s a huge need for more food. Given the big need, Coit has advice for people who are planning food drives or donations: Focus on a single item, so that volunteers and staff don’t have to sort diverse foods from donated boxes. Ask food drive donors to all contribute the same thing, such as peanut butter, kid-friendly foods like boxed macaroni and cheese, or canned items such as tuna, fruit, or soup.

“We thought three months of inventory was enough,” Coit says, “but now we’ve learned we should build for six. And as a community, we need to think a lot more about local self-sufficiency.” He’d like to see a local cannery, more home gardens, and more support for local farmers.

He’s not alone. A Regional Agriculture Business and Innovation Park in Tenino is already in the works, the Olympia Farmers Market is open Saturdays and Sundays, and it is finally the season for planting vegetables or building a backyard chicken coop.

None of that will be enough to make us truly self-sufficient, of course; if this pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that we are all profoundly interdependent. Our safety from potential illness and death depends on how each of us behaves now and in the months ahead.

As we live through this long-running tragedy together, we are reminded of the words of Mr. Rogers: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”

We hope our readers will look for the helpers, and find one in the mirror. The Thurston County Food Bank’s phone number is 360-352-8597.

This story was originally published May 10, 2020 at 6:00 AM.