Ray Cooper, a volunteer from the Tenino Lions Club, carries a box of supplies from the Tenino Food Bank Plus Tuesday afternoon.
The Tenino Food Bank has seen a dramatic increase in demand during the COVID-19 pandemic.
TENINO — From 9 a.m. to noon every Tuesday there is a normally unfamiliar sight in downtown Tenino. Traffic. Lots of it.
It’s the time and day that the Tenino Food Bank Plus is handing out bags and boxes of food to local clients; so many that the City of Tenino has allowed the food bank, located on the corner of State Street North and Sussex Avenue, to make State Street North a one-way street to alleviate traffic and make it easier for people in need to pick up their food. Tenino Lions Club members are helping direct traffic during that time.
“It’s just been crazy,” said Pat Haller, Tenino Food Bank Plus executive director. “Things have just exploded with more clients.”
Tenino Food Bank normally serves 1,000 individuals a month. That number has tripled in recent months since the coronavirus pandemic hit the nation in mid March.
Haller, who started the food bank with Robin Ruby 34 years ago, took over as executive director when Ruby passed away in 2017. She’s never seen the numbers jump up so dramatically and quickly in the 30-plus years she’s been working at the food bank.
“Never,” Haller said. “Never.”
Since May, the Tenino Food Bank Plus has been receiving shipments of food from the Thurston County Food Bank via Food Lifeline, a nonprofit organization based in Seattle that supplies hundreds of Western Washington food banks, shelters and meal programs.
Much of Food Lifeline’s items have come from donations from restaurants that were forced to close due to coronavirus, Haller said. The food bank now receives weekly boxes that it redistributes to people in need in the Tenino area.
Normally, most of the Tenino Food Bank’s items come from donations from the community, such as local food drives and individuals, although some food did come from Food Lifeline and Northwest Harvest, another nonprofit food bank distributor.
Though the increase in demand has erupted in the past few months for Tenino Food Bank, the individual donations from community members have been equally as explosive.
“For a small community, Tenino is very generous,” Haller said. “People are just amazing coming through with the food to help us.”
Before the coronavirus hit, clients were able to enter the food bank daily to choose which food items they needed, such as bread, pastries, produce and so forth. Now the food bank is open from 9 a.m. to noon on Thursday in Tenino. All food is pre-bagged and pre-boxed and volunteers bring the food out to the clients curbside.
Volunteers in masks take their name and size of household, then go to retrieve the food and place it in the trunk or bed of the client’s vehicle so there is a 6-foot distance between the volunteers and clients.
The Tenino Food Bank also now delivers to senior citizens in the area that request it, along with anyone who is immunocompromised or fearful to leave their house. It delivers to about 75 families every Tuesday at this time.
The amount of volunteers the food bank has varies. Right now it’s about 14 people, including a couple of Lions Club members who assemble the produce bags that the food bank hands out.
“We have a wonderful crew of volunteers that are there every Tuesday and Thursday,” Haller said.
Another new aspect to the food bank is that it sets up at the Bucoda Community Center from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Thursday to distribute food to those residents so they don’t have to travel the five miles to Tenino to get their food.
The amount of clients, thankfully, has slowly started to decrease recently as more residents are returning to work, Haller said. She’s not sure how much longer the food bank will receive shipments from Food Lifeline but is hoping they continue to come in while the demand for food is still present in the area.
“Hopefully everybody will go back to work and things will go back to normal,” Haller said. “But I don’t see the normal as we knew it. I think it will be a new normal.”
The food bank accepts nonperishable donations, as well as money. Money allows the food bank to purchase items they normally don’t receive, such as dairy products and fresh vegetables. Food can be left in the donation box outside the food bank or can leave it with volunteers between 9 a.m. and noon on Tuesdays. If donors are not able to donate during that time and day they can call the food bank at 360-264-5505 to arrange another time for a drop off.
