Sumner Community Food Bank
Organization Details
The Sumner Community Food bank helps our low-income neighbors in need to feed their families by providing nutritious food and groceries so they can focus on succeeding without worrying about their next meal. We do this in 3 ways:
- We Provide Nutritious Food With Dignity to the increased number of those in need equitably in our marketplace-concept food bank, allowing them freedom to choose their foods and removing any stigma from the process.
- We Steward our Resources through warehouse effectiveness and to distribute surplus food by partnering with over 50 other food banks & pantries to distribute food throughout our region, especially to rural areas & food deserts where access to healthy food is limited.
- We Increase Access to Resources, as we recognize that food insecurity is often only one problem our clients face. We provide computer access to make electronic referrals for health and social services, job searching, and other community resource sign-ups, as well as host resource events.
Impact Story
We exist because there is a tangible need in our communities, especially since the start of the pandemic. Since then, the rise of food insecurity has been well documented:
- In June 2021, the Sumner Community Food Bank had 12 families visit the food bank a day; now, we have over 75 families a day.
- According to the WAFOOD studies done by University of Washington & Washington State University, food insecurity has tripled in our state during the pandemic, going from 10% to 27% in less than 2 years.
- Diet quality is also at risk: 43% of respondents from these studies said their diet has worsened during the pandemic, putting families at risk of nutrition-related diseases.
The Sumner Community Food Bank combats this food insecurity in our communities and strives to make a positive impact. We offer healthy fresh and packaged food and beverages, pet food, childcare items, and personal hygiene products that have been donated. To ensure we provide a healthy variety, we also budget for food purchases when donations of staple items such as produce, milk, eggs, and meat are low. During the school year, we support 10 local schools with our weekend Backpack Program, where we provide over 900 backpacks each month filled with nutritious, child-friendly foods for students. We also partner with over 50 other food banks, pantries, and outreach programs to supply food to outlying urban & rural communities, reaching over 50,000 people through our network alone.
