Published November 2002

Marysville center feeds hundreds
each week

By Kimberly Hilden
SCBJ Assistant Editor

Tuesday mornings are bustling affairs at the Marysville Community Food Bank.

In the back of the building, volunteers unload boxes of newly delivered food, put eggs into cartons and pack baked and canned goods into brown paper bags. Up front, food bank clients select fresh vegetables and collect one or more of those filled brown paper bags, depending on their need.

Between 9:30 a.m. and noon on those days, as many as 300 clients stream into the building at 6518 60th Drive NE to pick up food, Director JoAnn Mulligan said.

A similar scene takes place between 9:30 and 11 a.m. on Saturdays, as 60 or so of the food bank’s employed clients — those in the work force who struggle to make ends meet — arrive at the distribution center.

“We ask people to come two times a month, but there are a lot of people who come more than that,” said Mulligan, who has been involved with the operation since its inception in 1985, when it began as a nonprofit organization supported by 12 area churches.

Today, the Marysville Community Food Bank is supported by 18 area churches, private individuals, service organizations and members of the business community — not to mention more than 100 volunteers who do everything from the administrative and janitorial work to sorting food collected in food drives.

Last year alone, food bank volunteers clocked in 15,163 hours, helping to distribute more than 1 million pounds of food to residents in need.

As a member of the Snohomish County Food Bank Coalition, the Marysville food bank also receives governmental funds and commodities through Volunteers of America Western Washington, Mulligan said.

“And the VOA also, when they have a major food drive, will divide up the food and bring it out to the food banks,” she said.

One major food drive that the organization counts on each year is the Postal Food Drive in May. Others are the holiday drives planned by Operation Marysville Community Christmas, a committee of the food bank that functions from October through the holiday season to provide food for families for Thanksgiving and Christmas as well as gifts for children.

In 2001, OMCC drives helped the Marysville food bank provide food for 681 families for Thanksgiving and another 681 families for Christmas, Mulligan said, with 1,300 children receiving presents.

“We anticipate (helping) the same or more this year,” she said, adding that volunteers will be needed Nov. 23 and 24 and Dec. 18 and 19 to help sort food items collected during the drives.

But the need for food doesn’t stop with the holidays, Mulligan said, noting that February and March tend to be high-need times at the food bank, as do the summer months.

To help out, businesses, churches and service organizations hold food drives throughout the year, she said, adding that any time a group wants to hold a food drive, the food bank can give it a list of foods that are needed.

For more information, call the food bank at 360-658-1054.

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