Helping Hand food bank may be closing

The Helping Hand food bank will apparently close at the end of September, coordinator Rick Dasher announced this week.

The Helping Hand food bank is run by a private, non-profit corporation. It has been housed in the Cathlamet Seventh Day Adventist Church for 15 years but is not operated by the church.

However, the church can no longer house Helping Hand, church attorney Herold Follet, general counsel for the Seventh Day Adventist Church, said Tuesday.

"The Cathlamet Seventh-day Adventist Church has made the decision to discontinue its arrangement for Helping Hand, a Washington nonprofit corporation, and no longer allow it to operate in the Seventh-day Adventist Church Community Services facility in Cathlamet," Follett said. "The Adventist church has other plans for its community services, and if it has opportunity and resources to provide food to those in need in the community, it will do so. The Adventist Community Services clothing bank will continue as normal"

In a letter to the editor of The Eagle, Dascher said "Helping Hand is looking into opening and operating in a more limited version and will keep you posted in the newspaper and flyers when that happens."

Helping Hand provides food to 150 families a month, said Ben Moor, pastor of the church.

There is one other food bank, in the county, the Wahkiakum Food Bank, operated by members of the Wahkiakum Interfaith Network.