Food bank starts Thanksgiving turkey drive

SANDPOINT — Bad news arrived at the Bonner Community Food Bank this week, just as the center is ramping up efforts to feed households in need this holiday season.

With the county’s unemployment rate having dipped to 8.8 percent in August of this year, compared with 9.6 percent in the same period a year ago (September figures have been delayed by the recent government shutdown), the Federal Emergency Management Agency decided not to issue a $10,000 food grant to the local organization for 2013.

According to food bank executive director Alice Wallace, the FEMA move is out of line with the actual numbers she sees here at home.

“That might be the feeling from Washington D.C.,” Wallace said, “but it does not reflect the numbers we are still seeing at the food bank or the number of clients who repeatedly tell us they can’t find work.”

While Idaho Department of Labor statistics list close to 1,700 people as being unemployed out of a Bonner County labor force of approximately 19,000 people, the food bank serves another level of need — the families that are underemployed and still struggling to afford groceries.

“We’re helping an average of 3,800-4,000 people right now,” said Wallace. “That’s a number that just never seems to go down.”

Another figure that remains stubbornly consistent, she added, is the number of turkeys the food bank needs as it enters the holiday season. For 2012, the center gathered about 900 turkeys and has set a goal of doing the same this season.

To make turkey donations more convenient, Wallace has contacted local grocery stores and set up a program where customers can buy the birds and leave them at the store for pick-up by the food bank. The arrangement represents just one more way in which grocers in the immediate area have stepped up to keep shelves stocked for families in need.

“The stores donated the equivalent of $600,000 in groceries in 2012,” Wallace said. “And that came from every grocery store in town.”

Donations continue to come in from individuals, whose drop-offs of a sack of canned goods or garden produce — coupled with vegetables provided by the garden at the Bonner County Jail — now combine to provide another 10,000 pounds of food annually.

Along with the food program, the Bonner Community Food Bank also administers Coats for Kids in Sandpoint. Often, Wallace and her volunteer staff are the first line of defense when cold weather hits and customers arrive with skimpy or worn out jackets on their children.

“I bought another 65 coats the other day and got them all laundered and ready to go,” said the executive director, explaining that she finds most of the clothing at second-hand and thrift stores. “About 20 of them have already gone out the door.”

The school food backpack program, too, falls under the food bank’s charter to help families in need. Each week, the center prepares nearly 170 backpacks with food to bridge the weekend for kids who eat the majority of their meals as free ore reduced-priced breakfasts and lunches at school on weekdays.

Wallace applauded Mac Hollan, a student teacher at Farmin Stidwell Elementary School, for his recent 2,750-mile fundraising “Point to Bay” bike ride from Sandpoint to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. Hollan completed the ride with two friends — a trek which included a harrowing episode where he had to use bear spray to fend off an attacking wolf — and raised $11,500 for the food backpacks in the process.

The fundraiser was a leg up for the program, but the food bank still is working to come up with the balance, according to Wallace.

“It takes us about $25,000 a year to run the backpack program,” she said. “Our original intent was to always be working toward next year’s funding, but, as it stands, we’re working on raising this year’s money.”

Perpetual fundraising is nothing new for the food bank, which receives roughly half its funding from grants and money raising events and the other half from community donations.

Fortunately, coming up with a large, monthly payroll is not one of the issues facing the organization, since the center is staffed by about 45 volunteers who work an average of 600 hours a month between them.

One more good news item comes with the status of the food bank’s 10-year loan for its location near the Sandpoint Airport. After only two years in the new site, fully half of the loan amount has been paid down, Wallace pointed out.

Bringing the conversation back around to her most pressing concern, the executive director underscored the importance of gaining momentum for turkey donations as the Nov. 28 Thanksgiving date draws closer.

“Turkeys and the trimmings are the big push right now,” she said. “And we will also have ham and chicken as options.”

In a devil’s advocate kind of question, Wallace was asked why her customers should expect such menu options for free or, for that matter, why they should expect to have a big holiday feast at all?

She responded as if such a question would never have crossed her mind.

“Everybody,” she said, pausing to make certain her meaning was plain, “Everybody deserves the dignity of having a nice Thanksgiving meal with their family.”

The Bonner Community Food Bank is located at 1707 Culvers Drive. For information on food bank services, how to become a volunteer or how to donate to the organization, call (208) 263-FOOD or visit them online at: www.foodbank83864.com.