Carla Gastineau-Director of the Arlington Community Food Bank. 

 

Carla has a new job!  She is now the Director of the Arlington Community Food Bank.  Since leaving the Stillaguamish Athletic Club, she waited about 10 months before this opportunity came up.  You might say that Carla, a member of our club, gave us her updated classification talk.

 

The Food Bank was started in 1981 and after being at a local church, moved to a house that was located in what is now part of Haller park.  A grant helped to build the new building in 2014. 

 

It provided about 15,000 individual servings last year.  Open Mondays and Thursdays.  Serves about 2000 individual households and serves all of the 98223 zip code.  It has about 160 volunteers that help to make the food bank function.  They work Monday thru Friday almost full time to make things happen. Food that is donated by the community is about 1/3 of the food that comes in, the other food is from Food Lifeline and Volunteers of America. Grocery Outlet has donated 15,000 lbs to the food bank.  The Stilly Snack Shack at Haller Park is managed by Grocery Outlet. 10% of the gross proceeds will go to the food bank. 

 

30,000 lbs of the grocery rescue food is waste and has to be sent to a pig farmer.  Some of the food that is delivered is donated to the Boys and Girls Club after clients have taken what they would like.

 

Volunteers of America is located in Everett and in 1981 the federal government implemented a farm act that qualifies families for emergency food assistance.  There are 19 food banks in North Snohomish County.  Arlington gets 4% of the food in Snohomish County based on the poverty level.  Food comes from the emergency assistance program, Community Support and food lifeline. 

 

The food that is donated is not consistent and is not always healthy. Often its peanut butter and tuna fish from the back of the pantry with other outdated food.

 

A $25,000 grant was made to the food bank for new cabinets and they will be changing to a client shopping model.  This allows clients the dignity of shopping for their own food and allows freedom of choice in the selection of food.  Also, have a section in the food bank for self-serve, single serve food choices for the transient population.

 

Meals to Monday program is the school aged program for students in the Arlington School District for kids that qualify for free or reduced lunch.  The Food Bank is given numbers from the school district to how many bags are needed.  This helps to supplement food for the weekends. 

 

 

Arlington School District is at a 20% poverty level.  This program is more expensive because the school district has rules to follow and all the bags have to have the exact same thing in them.  This program is funded by grants and new grants are needed.

 

Visions for the future are to have another vehicle soon.  Also, to have more volunteers would be wonderful.  To have a delivery service would be a goal to serve home bound clients.  If we were to bring food-shelf stable food would be most needed and especially cereal is needed.  Snacks are also needed.

 

To learn more about how you could help, click HERE