Reader suggests food banks explore merger

To The Eagle:

A couple of weeks ago there was a door-to-door collection of food for the food banks. I was told that the food would be distributed equally between the two food banks that operate in this county. As a user of these foods banks I am very concerned.

I visited the Wahkiakum Food Bank and their shelves were stuffed with food to the point that there was food on the bottom shelves for holiday giving. There are such wonderful caring people in this county to help out the less fortunate.

The following week I visited the Helping Hand Food Bank. The shelves were nearly empty. The freezers (you could see the bottoms) had only hot dogs and vegetables. I did not see mayonnaise, ketchup, peanut butter, syrup, jams and jellies, canned corn, cereal, tuna, canned chicken and Spam on the shelves. I asked what had happened to all the food from the food drive. I was informed that the Helping Hand Food Bank had only received a small portion of what had been collected.

I know that both food banks are looking for a new home, so why can’t they operate as one? An Eagle article dated April 25, 2013 stated that the Wahkiakum Food Bank had tried that before and that their mission was different from the Helping Hand Food Bank.

My question is who decides what goes where when it is not a direct donation to a specified food bank? It was my understanding that this drive was promoted by the Post Office. The donation bag came with my mail and I could drop off at the Post Office as the mail carriers would not be able to carry all the full bags.

I have seen this happen before. For instance, after the softball game between the police department and the volunteer fire department most of the donations went to the Wahkiakum Food Bank.

I am sure that there are people who cannot access both food banks, so why should one get more than the other?

Patricia Rafferty

Cathlamet