These are rocky times. Money is short, resources are strained, and client numbers are increasing rapidly. These are problems the emergency food community has faced for years, but they have accelerated during the past couple years.During this time, it has become increasingly clear why the Washington Food Coalition is so important. What organization in Washington State wholly and specifically represents the interests of emergency food sites and their clients?

Only the Washington Food Coalition.

Mark Your Calendar for the Upcoming Harvest Against HungerArea Summits:

Fall 2011 - Central Washington AreaJanuary 2012 -Seattle Area February 2012 -Olympia AreaContact us to get involved with the event in your area!RSVP & get details online at: www.WaFoodCoalition.org/Events.html

“We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”

-Charles SwindollIn the current economic climate, providing enough food to the hungry in our state seems like an increasing daunting task. Providing plenty of healthful, fresh produce proves to be an even greater burden. However, there is a movement across our state to form relationships and innovate partnerships in order to make this much more possible than ever before.WFC is coordinating the Harvest Against Hunger Area Summits across our state to facilitate connections and partnerships between our member food programs and local farmers, with a focus on specialty crops. The motivation for these Summits is driven by the proven success that has been seen in effectvive partnerships across the state. Our goal is to equip our members and increase effective partnerships between food programs and farmers, in order to produce growth in fresh produce available to the hungry in Washington while supporting our local farmers.Our member agency Bellingham Food Bank is a shining example of how these partnerships can provide great benefit to emergency food programs and farmers alike. Among other programs that Max Morange runs as their agricultural programs coordinator, their Small Potatoes Gleaning Project collects and distributes surplus or unsold produce from farms, home gardens and farmers markets that would otherwise be thrown out or plowed under. Small Potatoes and its volunteers glean more than 130,000 pounds of produce each year that would otherwise go to waste. They recently launched a new effort with the Boxx Berry Farms where they not only take away the unused excess from the farm but have also been given a portion of the farm’s land for their own production of food. In addition, they run a Farm to Food Bank program where they purchase directly from 7 local farms. After letting the farms know what they need grown, they cut each a check at the beginning of the season (just like how traditional CSAs operate), and the farms deliver produce, milk, eggs directly to the food bank regularly. The products are then re-distributed among the entire Whatcom county food bank network in accordance with each food bank’s client numbers.Another one of our member agencies, Hope-Link in Carnation, has been able to receive excess produce through a partnership between Rotary First Harvest and Full Circle Farms. Full Circle encourages its CSA subscribers to donate excess produce to a booth hosted by Rotary First Harvest at the Carnation Farmers’ Market towards the end of the growing season. The produce is then brought directly in to the food bank for distribution.All across our state, our member agencies are finding opportunities to collaborate with local growers as a way to help ease the burden of these trying times. These partnerships are certainly not easy and take coordination. However, when done right, the payoff is plentiful. If you are already operating effective partnerships with local producers-share your story with us! If you are not yet connected with your local farmers, consider how you could find innovative ways to build relationships with local growers and bring greater amounts of fresh produce to your clients. Also, be sure to attend one or more of our upcoming Harvest Against Hunger Area Summits!

Washington Food CoalitionC/O Thurston County Food Bank220 NE ThurstonOlympia, WA 98501Tel: 360.352.8597 www.ThurstonCountyFoodBank.orgWashington Food CoalitionPO Box 95752Seattle, WA 98145

Working Together for a Hunger-Free Washington Is this address correct and current? If not, please let us know!

Mark your calendar now for our 2012 Annual Conference on beautiful Lake Chelan. This event will be part of our celebration of 20 years as the all-Washington & only-Washington grassroots coalition for emergency

food providers. The conference will be packed with all of the usual fabulous workshops and sessions, as well as many celebration events and new tours!

We are thrilled to announce our 2012 Keynote Speaker, Jim Weill. Jim Weill has been President of the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) since February 1998. Jim has devoted his entire professional career to reducing hunger and poverty, protecting the legal rights of children and poor people, and expanding economic security, income and nutrition support programs and health insurance coverage.

A publication of the Washington Food Coalition

P.O. Box 95752 Seattle, WA 98145-2752 206.729.0501 / phone

206.729-0504 / faxwww.wafoodcoalition.orginfo@wafoodcoalition.org

Board MembersKris Van Gasken, Des Moines Area Food Bank

WFC ChairRobert Coit, Thurston County Food Bank

WFC Immediate Past ChairHelen McGovern, Emergency Food Network

WFC Vice ChairYvonne Pitrof, Vashon Maury Food Bank

WFC TreasurerNancy Wilson, Inter-Faith Treasure House

WFC SecretaryRoger Trapp, Resources Community Action

Bob Soule, Chelan-Douglas Comm Action CenterPeny Archer, Comm Services of Moses Lake

Scott Kilpatrick, Comm Services of Moses Lake Connie Nelson, Spokane Valley Partners

JoAnn Ruston, Hope Source Lisa Hall, Northwest Harvest

John Neill, Tri-Cities Food BankChris Gerke, Cascade Blue Mountain Food Share

Kathy Covey, Blue Mountain Action CouncilWendy Gonzalez, Helpline Walla Walla

Bill Humphreys, Volunteers of America WWMike Cohen, Bellingham Food Bank

Joe Gruber, University District Food BankKevin Glackin-Coley, St. Leo’s Food Connection Robin Rudy, Tenino Community Service Center

Kellie McNelly, ROOF Community ServicesJames Fitzgerald, Sal. Army-Stop Hunger

Vicki Pettit, Coastal Community Action Program Anthony Airhart, Coastal Harvest

Hoyt Burrows, Central Kitsap Food Bank Marilyn Gremse, Bainbridge Island Help House

Bonnie Baker, Northwest Harvest Scott Hallett, Council on Aging & Human Services

Shayne Kraemer, Meals Partnership Dorothy Palmer, Colville Confederated Tribes

Through its statewide membership, Washington Food Coalition members

find practical solutions to common challenges. The Coalition draws on the strength and reach of its membership to equip, educate and empower every-

one working to end hunger in our state.__________________________________________

This newsletter prepared with funds made available by the WA Dept. of Agriculture,

Food Assistance Programs.

No person shall on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, national origin, age, citizenship,

political affiliations, belief, veteran status or sexual orientation, be denied employment or benefits or be discriminated against as a participant, administrator

or staff member under this program.

July 1st marks the beginning of a new fiscal year for Washington Food Coalition & a new year of membership benefits! Send in your 2010-2011 member dues so you don’t miss out on any of

the new benefits in this new year. This year, your membership dues go even further!When you pay your dues, they will now earn you full membership through December 2012. After that, membership dues will then be renewed every year in January, making it easier for you to remember that they’re due!

As part of this transition, we will be adjusting our dues costs to fit this schedule. Fill out the Pledge of Support Form included with this newsletter & send it in! Or, check out our website

under ‘Membership’ to see the updates to our member dues and renew them online.

I’ve been a member of the Washington Food Coalition for ten years. What I’ve gained from the WFC has changed over time. As a new executive director, I attended the annual conference. I learned the basics of running an emergency food program and found support and answers to my questions in those I met. I got to interact with people who ran the same types of programs as I did, but implemented them in very different ways, and this expanded my thinking. Later, I came for networking, to interact with leaders in our industry, to share tips and new ideas. Today, I still come to steal (I mean, share) ideas, and to get rejuvenated and energized about the important work that we do in our communities. I have come to realize, however, that while our individual organization’s strength lies in our local community, our strength as a coalition comes from working together on a state-wide level, so that no one in Washington will go hungry. I’m excited to partner with you all in this work, and I encourage you to be involved!

Over the past 5 months it has been my great pleasure to meet and work alongside those fighting hunger in the state of Washington. My eyes have been opened to the complexity of the emergency food world and all the energy that goes into placing food in the hands of a hungry family. Prior to joining the team at WFC, I viewed food banks very similar to 90% of the population. I believed that it was a simple process of getting food donated and distributed to a mainly homeless population in the impoverished parts of our state. I have come to realize I was sorely mistaken. Bringing food to the table starts far beyond the walls of the food bank.

Not only has a more in depth understanding of the emergency food system allowed me to better appreciate the work being done, but I also now know how I specifically need be in-volved throughout the rest of my life. From advocacy, gifts in kind, re-packing events, and even donating canned goods, all are wonderful ways to strive towards ending hunger in Washington.

I had the great privilege of walking through several food banks surrounding Seattle. One thing that stood out to me is the commitment of the food bank Directors. As they walked me through their buildings, big or small, they each beamed with pride for the work their staff members and volunteers were doing. They daily pour their hearts and souls into their work, bending over backwards to meet the needs of their clients. While visiting one specific food bank, the director was walking me through their warehouse and I noted something very distinct... her hands. They showed signs of someone who works endlessly. Not only was she the director, but also a volunteer coordinator, prob-lem solver, event planner, gardener, encourager and friend to clients. I have found this to be true of so many people in the world of hunger. Their calling drives them to work endless hours and fill numerous roles, especially in our current economic climate with decreasing funding.

One afternoon I found myself at the Good Cheer Food bank on Whidbey Island enjoying a tour from one of their staff members. While explaining why they chose to set up the food bank resembling a grocery store she said, “Money does not create happiness. Choices create happiness.” I am still struck by this statement and find it to be so true. When we can provide choices to our clients, even when coming to a food bank is their only option, we are bringing back their dignity while putting food on the table.

I has been my great honor to work alongside so many amazing people and I will be ever changed by their commit-ment to serve those less privileged.

Connect with us online to stay up-to-date on information about

our member agencies, budget items, and other helpful resources

“Let all who are hungry enter and eat.”When those words were first spoken, odds are that the speaker actually knew the names of the hungry; they were his neighbors down on their luck. Now we speak the very same words, but few of us know the name of even one person who

experiences real hunger - or as the experts call it these days, “food insecurity.”Yet scarcely a day goes by when we do not read of the growing number of hungry Americans. People who never imagined that they would have to rely on soup kitchens and food pantries now stand in line and await their turn, joining millions of others long since intimately familiar with hunger. The numbers are daunting.Hunger in America is not a consequence of drought, natural disaster or a lack of food. There is more than enough food in this country for everyone to “enter and eat.” That’s why, when we think of hunger here at home, we do not think of it as a tragedy; we think of it as a scandal.That scandal is now on the verge of fearsome growth. The fate of programs such as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly food stamps) and WIC (Women, Infants and Children) - federal assistance programs that help low income families afford groceries - suddenly is uncertain. This is simply un-acceptable.We do not know the names of each person suffering from the oppression of hunger, but we are conscience-bound to keep open our doors and ensure that they know they are welcome at America’s table. They have not caused the deficit crisis; neither should it be resolved by asking them to endure the anxiety and pain of hunger in order to repair it. Our chosen task is to end the scandal, not to ignore it, let alone to extend it.