Everett food bank concerned it can’t fill need

Published 10:59 pm Thursday, November 13, 2008

EVERETT — This Thanksgiving, 2,300 Snohomish County families may miss out on the traditional feast.

With a difficult economy and families struggling to make ends meet, the Volunteers of America food bank has experienced a 35 percent increase in households requesting assistance at the same time charitable giving has dropped 67 percent.

“We didn’t have this problem last year,” Sharon Paskewitz said. “The community really helped us out with food and dollars which got us through the year and holidays.”

This year, Paskewitz, who is the group’s director of basic needs services, is looking at some grim numbers: Half of the households needing assistance have children and 20 percent are senior citizens.

The end result is that people will be without a Thanksgiving dinner, and Christmas dinner resources are nearly nonexistent.

Donations of frozen turkeys help, but money is what is most needed.

Paskewitz is still holding out hope that donations will arrive to help in time for the Thanksgiving — and beyond.

“It’s a really challenging place to be in this year,” Paskewitz said. “We’d like to give families a turkey but I don’t know if we can do that. Come Dec. 1 we’re going to have the same problem.”

Reporter Justin Arnold: 425-339-3432 or jarnold@heraldnet.com.

Trot out a turkey

To donate or find out more information on how to help, contact the Volunteers of America at 425-212-3211.