Washougal food pantry asks for help as supplies dwindle, need grows

East County Family Resource Center provides food for Washougal students and families through backpack program

By Doug Flanagan
October 31, 2024 2:22 pm
Life, News

Reuben Cottingham, Akin’s East County Family Resource Center manager, picks up a box of graham crackers from the food shelves at the center on Oct. 28, 2024. Cottingham said the food pictured above, which is intended for the Washougal School District’s backpack program, “will be gone within two weeks.” (Doug Flanagan/Post-Record)

Leaders at the East County Family Resource Center in Washougal say they are seeking community donations to supplement a rapidly dwindling food supply.

The Resource Center operates an on-site food pantry and provides food for the Washougal School District’s weekly backpack program. Donations from the Camas and Washougal school districts’ annual Stuff The Bus community food drive help stock the Resource Center’s pantry, but most of those donations won’t roll in until later this fall.

Until then, the center is “begging” the community for donations, according to Adrienne Mason, the Southwest Washington regional director for Akin, the Resource Center’s main tenant.

“If I can say this with optimism, I think it’s a good problem to have — we’re running out of food because we’re helping so many people,” said Reuben Cottingham, Akin’s manager for the Resource Center. “We’re just hoping that we continue to have the resources to serve the community in the way that they need to be served.”

Resource Center volunteers prepare 130 backpacks per week for the backpack program, according to Mason, filled with peanut butter, crackers, oatmeal packets, fruit cups, soup cups, Ramen, Spaghetti O’s, chili, chicken noodle soup, macaroni and cheese, and/or Goldfish packets, among other items.

“We pack those bags with easy-to-prepare foods that kiddos could prepare for themselves,” she said. “And those foods are harder to come by; (they’re) not automatically what you get from a food bank. We are running really low on (those items).

“A lot of our kids in Camas and Washougal school districts are on free and reduced lunch, so they’re getting breakfast and lunch at school,” she continued. “But we’re not necessarily sure what food access looks like at home, so the idea is to send them home Friday with food in a backpack to get them through the weekend until they get back to school for breakfast and lunch.”

The food pantry is “where all of our caregivers are coming in for the supplies they need to make meals,” Mason said.

“Those types of foods are really in high demand — pastas, pasta sauce, rice, tuna fish, peanut butter, jelly, all those sorts of items,” she said. “You can get pasta, canned food, cereal, meat — typical food pantry stuff. The backpack program is our first priority, making sure people who are relying on that have that. But it is really important for our food pantry to also be stocked in the lobby. These are folks coming in for emergency food assistance to feed families. I think that’s an area where support is still needed. At the end of this week, we’ll be out of food there.”

Mason said the main reason for the shortage is the fact that the 2023 Stuff The Bus donations “were a little lighter than usual.”

“Historically, Stuff The Bus has been the main provider of food,” she said. “We got less food (last year) than we typically do, so we knew we were going to be kind of in a tight spot. The back storage unit … is typically all the way full, and all of the racks are always full to the brim with boxes stacked in front of them. When we see that much food, we’re like, ‘Yep, that’s about enough to get us through the year.’ Last year, we did not fill all of those racks, so we were like, ‘OK, this isn’t quite as much as normal.’”

Another factor contributing to the food-supply shortage is the fact that the Resource Center has seen increased demand for its services — including food — in the past 12 months due to rising costs of groceries and other items, according to Mason.

“With inflation and the cost of food, we’ve seen the number of folks coming in for food increasing, so that depleted our supply a little earlier,” she said. “Inflation doesn’t just impact the cost of groceries. When I talk about Akin having to choose whether we’re going to buy food or diapers, those are the direct decisions that our families are making every single day. It’s super important that we have one or the other or both to be able to offer families to help offset some of that.”

Once they determined that they’d be challenged to make their food supply last through November, Akin leaders agreed to a contract with the Clark County Food Bank to augment their food supply.

“Typically, we just stock our Vancouver office with (Clark County Food Bank food),” Mason said, “but we added Washougal this summer to help build up and supplement (our) supply. I think we’re up to twice a week (food bank runs) for Washougal, but that really only supports that food pantry, and it doesn’t allow for maximum choice for folks, so we are spending some set-aside dollars (of our own to boost food supply).

“Typically, we’re buying diapers with that money, so right now we’re having to make the difficult choice between diapers and food, which is a decision nobody should ever have to make. We have started seeing a lot of community members show up with stuff for the backpack program, as well as regular food, so that’s been helpful. But other than that, we’re just waiting until Stuff the Bus.”

Akin, a Seattle-based family service organization, provides children and family counseling, treatment for child victims of sexual abuse, family support services — including parent education, parenting classes and family advocate services — and emergency food supplies for individuals and families in need.

The organization was formed earlier this year when two of Washington state’s family services organizations — Childhaven and Children’s Home Society of Washington — combined forces.

“Things have been framed in the past that there’s a certain type of person that needs help, or there’s a certain type of community that needs help,” Cottingham said. “I feel like everyone has had their share of hard times. I think this is just a new norm for us. Maybe you don’t always have your ducks in a row. But we’re hoping that Akin can continue to be a space where people can get what they need whenever they need it. But in order for us to continue to have those resources, we heavily rely on donations.

“I’m so thankful for the Clark County Food Bank and the amount of donations we get from Stuff The Bus,” he continued, “but we’re seeing that it just may not be enough, so we’re hoping that the community can help us out a little.”

For more information email [email protected] or call 360-835-7802. The East County Family Resource Center is located at 1702 “C” St., Washougal.

“I’m pretty optimistic,” Cottingham said. “Once we understand what happens when we band together as a family, cool things can happen. But for that amazing story to be told, hard work has to be done first. I’m new to Akin, but from the stories that I’ve heard, Washougal is a community that knows how to come together and get things done so that people who are less fortunate can continue to move forward in their own lives.”

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