Cars line up early for food box giveaway in Moses Lake
Volunteers, left to right, Bree Edwards, Korene Edwards and Ruth Norman get boxes ready for people as the Food Box event gets set to kick off at the Moses Lake Christian Church on Thursday afternoon.
Casey McCarthy/Columbia Basin Herald
Cars lined up a long ways down Yonezawa Boulevard in front of Moses Lake Christian Church before the food box giveaway even began on Thursday afternoon.
Volunteer Ruth Norman, front left, loads a box into the trunk of a car at the food box giveaway at Moses Lake Christian Church on Thursday afternoon.
Volunteer Melissa Cazin loads a box of food into the back of a truck at the Farms to Families Food Box Dispersal at Moses Lake Christian Church on Thursday.
MOSES LAKE — Volunteers from Moses Lake Christian Church handed out 30-pound food boxes at the Yonezawa Boulevard church Thursday afternoon, dispersing 480 boxes to families.
The food distribution was sponsored by Cascadia Produce through the USDA’s Farm to Families Food Box program. The food box event will continue every Thursday in February.
Cars began lining up hours before the event started at 11 a.m., and remained queued on Yonezawa when the volunteers ran out of boxes around 12:15 p.m. John Roberts, lead pastor, said the group had no idea how many cars to expect for the event.
Roberts said they told Cascadia Produce to bring 480 boxes and were concerned about what they would do with leftovers when planning for the event.
“I just think there’s a lot of need, I don’t think we recognize how much is out there,” Roberts said. “There’s a lot of programs out there that serve lots of people, but there’s a lot of people that are in the middle that maybe don’t qualify for some programs but still have some needs.”
He said it was tough getting to the end of the boxes when they didn’t reach the end of the line. But, Roberts said Cascadia is open to expanding the food box program to other nonprofits in the area.
As he looked at the line of cars waiting for the food boxes to arrive, Roberts said he’s thinking of the best options to ensure as many people as possible are helped. One way to accomplish that might be separating times for food box pickups in coming weeks, he said.
“We don’t want people who are coming to be frustrated,” Roberts said.
He said he was grateful for Cascadia helping with the food box program. Roberts said it’s awesome to be able to help and added he hopes his church is helping meet a need.
Roberts said the pandemic has sort of “reset” the routine for many people in the area, with many looking to figure out what God is trying to teach them.
“One of the things is there’s a lot of people with needs,” Roberts said.
The next food box event is 11 a.m. Thursday at Moses Lake Christian Church, 200 Yonezawa Blvd.
