Church volunteers keep Warden Food Bank going
Warden Community Church members Kristi Boersma, left, and Terry Crow make up food packages at the Warden Food Bank. The food bank is run by three churches, rotating every month.
JOEL MARTIN/COLUMBIA BASIN HERALD
People line up outside the Warden Food Bank Thursday. The food bank serves about 60 families every week.
WARDEN — Keeping the Warden Food Bank running is a group effort. Three groups, in fact.
The food bank is the joint project of three local churches: Warden Community Church, Queen of All Saints Catholic Church and Life 3:16, formerly the Warden Assembly of God. The congregations rotate each month, supplying volunteers.
“The Warden Ministerial Alliance started this in the ’90s, and it was just done through the churches,” said volunteer Jenny Crow. “We're working toward getting more involved with the Othello (Food Bank) and the Moses Lake Food Bank. But we're very small and all of it's volunteers. We do what we can when we can.”
The food bank is only open for an hour each week, from 3:30 to 4:30 on Thursday afternoons, but there’s plenty to do. Crow was one of three volunteers on Thursday from Warden Community Church. Originally the pastors of the three churches did the bulk of the work, but over the years laypeople have taken on more and more. Their congregation is getting older, said volunteer Kristi Boersma, but they still pitch in, including one church member in his 90s.
“It takes a lot of man hours to do this,” Crow said. “You have to purchase, you have to stock, you have to be here to hand out. It takes quite a bit of effort.”
About 60 families come to the food bank every week, Crow said. The building is very small, so families line up outside the door and come in one at a time to receive a bag of food for the week. Each bag contains rice and beans, pasta and pasta sauce, a main meal – chili, for example – a soup, a vegetable and fruit. As they leave, patrons are invited to take something extra from the small table by the door. Bags of fresh apples or packages of dried fruit were available Thursday. Every two weeks the food bank gets a donation of 44 gallons of milk, Crow said, and those are distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.
In the back, the volunteers have a small stash of diapers and baby wipes, but those are usually only given out on request, and the volunteers can’t always count on having a supply at any given time. So far, the food bank has never run out of food with people still waiting, Crow said.
“We're plugging along, doing the best we can with what we've got,” she said.
Much of the food comes through an arrangement with the Othello Food Bank, Crow said, but the local community gives the food bank a great deal of support.
“We have a family that brings us eggs, so sometimes we have eggs to give out,” she said. “And then we have bigger companies like Skone & Connors and Jensen Farms, and they will bring potatoes and onions and things like that, rotating depending on the time of year … Our staff at the Warden School District donates a large portion of money each month and one of the teachers at the school will go and purchase (food) with that money and deliver it. We're very much family-oriented in this community.”
Food banks get lots of attention during November and December when people are thinking about holidays and giving, but once January rolls around, the donations tend to dry up a little. What doesn’t go away is the need, Boersma said.
“They’re hungry every week, not just at Christmas time,” she said. “It’s a need in the community. We wish it wasn’t, but this is one way we can do something.”
Warden Food Bank
301 E. Fifth Street
Open 3:30-4:30 p.m. Thursdays
People line up outside the Warden Food Bank on Thursday. The food bank serves about 60 families every week.