Wahkiakum Food Bank also sees growing needs

“The Wahkiakum Food Bank is seeing more people needing help, but it has just received a donation from an elementary school food drive,” Director Jimmie Lou Cleveland said this week.

The food bank operates from the Health and Human Services campus but it is not affiliated with the county.

Cleveland said, “There has been a steady increase with lots of new people. The numbers we see keep climbing.”

Cash donations are down. “The little people” aren’t contributing as they had been…The food banks serves about 18-27 families a week,” Cleveland said.

Cleveland is hoping donations from Thanksgiving can come early, so she’ll know how to plan for Thanksgiving dinners.

The food bank receives donations from local gardeners. Lately there have been many tomatoes, squash, lettuce and beets.

“Not a lot of people know how to cook beets, and some people don’t like them.” Cleveland said.

“I was here from the beginning,” Cleveland said, remembering when Pastor Solberg from the United Church of Christ and Jack Linquist started the food bank, first held in the school cafeteria.

“There were five churches involved,” Cleveland said, noting that Louise Lyda and Gladys Crouse were early supporters.

The group moved out of the school cafeteria to Skamokawa because of concerns with privacy, before it moved to its location on Elochoman Valley Road, she said.

Cleveland said the 10 volunteers she has are “all so great. They each have a niche. They do that, and if they didn’t it wouldn’t work as it does.”

Food bank volunteers see people with real needs.

“One little girl came in nine months pregnant, or she looked like that. She leaned across the desk and had tears in her eyes,” Cleveland said.

She remembers a man she had to turn away because he was drinking. “He got help and he came back out. I told him, I guess you’ve stubbed your toe, but now you can get up and keep going. It’s rewarding,” she said.

The food bank is open from 3-5 p.m. on Tuesdays.

Wahkiakum Health and Human Services doesn’t operate a food bank, although Community Outreach makes referrals to emergency food or shelter resources as needed. Outreach specialist Jackie Jones said she’s turning people away from the county’s emergency shelter space, which has been full for some time.

“We refer to Longview which has a shelter. A woman told me she had a friend in Naselle. We try to connect them with something,” Jones said.

Individuals who need immediate help with food should contact Jackie Jones at Wahkiakum Health and Human Services, 360-795-8630.