Yellow Pages
Between bagging and hauling canned chili and rice, food bank volunteers hear the stories of Skagit’s struggling families.
The stories are scattered with layoffs, homelessness and an overwhelming sense that the worst is yet to come.
That’s what the volunteers at Anacortes 100 hear on Fourth Street.
Director Belinda Dye, 55, and volunteer Marion Goodnight, 84, load paper sacks with cans, boxes and bags of food. In a small front lobby, volunteers Gail Goodnight, 59, and Gary Walter, 74, greet customers and help carry groceries out to the cars in front.
Many of the volunteers have worked at Anacortes 100 throughout its 21-year existence. So the Tuesday and Friday distribution days double as social hours for the volunteers.
Gail Goodnight hugged several of the people who came through the food bank and talked about their lives. Goodnight knows many of the people who come through, but she’s also seeing new people who say it’s their first visit to a food bank.
“It’s hard to see them struggle, but you’ve got to keep that inside,” Goodnight said. “When they have good news, they tell you about it, and it makes you feel good.”
Skagit County food banks have seen a few more people come through their doors, but not a sharp increase. In February 2008, the food banks served 4,949 people through the federal commodities program. This year, the same food banks served 5,350.
Anacortes 100 saw 27 new people in January and 43 in February this year. In Sedro-Woolley, Helping Hands Food Bank served between 65 and 94 new people each week in February.
The largest increases took place at the Alger Food bank, which served 481 people in February 2008, and 854 people this year.
Dye receives the calls all week from families who don’t know how the food banks work or if they’re eligible.
Dye and other food bank volunteers say the first-timers are scared and embarrassed.
“They feel bad about it,” said Amy Berryman, director of the Alger Food Bank. “… They don’t want to come to the food bank, but they don’t have any other source.”
Berryman and Dye said they try to make the newcomers feel welcome.
“That’s why I’m there, to help these families get through bad times,” Berryman said. “I’ve been with this food bank 27 years. I know how they feel, and they need a little bit of encouragement.”
Katy Carter, assistant administrator at the Helping Hands Food Bank in Sedro-Woolley, said the economic woes have come with some good news. She has enough donations after a short dip last fall.
Just before Thanksgiving, Carter said the food bank was going to buy fewer turkeys because of lack of funding and donations. But a last-minute donation helped get the bank through the holidays.
Since then, she’s seen more people stopping by to offer bags of groceries. She said one woman dropped off a donation because she couldn’t sleep thinking about all the newly unemployed families.
“The people in this town are exceedingly generous,” Carter said. “People are coming through.”
In Anacortes, Dye said one man has been bringing by two bags of rice every week for the food bank. She said he had never donated before and never explained why he was donating now.
• Aaron Burkhalter can be reached at .
