Familys Lake Ki food drive tradition going on 11 years
Published 6:29 pm Thursday, December 24, 2015
LAKEWOOD — Neighbors yelled encouragement as the silver and white Thunder Jet nosed up to their docks and the crew inside snagged items, loaded them into the back of the boat and motored away.
“Merry Christmas,” they called out. “Thank you for doing this.”
“Eleventh year,” Larry Jackson replied to one neighbor. “Gotta keep her going.”
Volunteers gathered roughly 1,000 pounds of donated food during the 11th annual Lake Ki Food Drive. Each year, people who live along the lake leave bags and boxes full of nonperishable food out on the ends of their docks. A team in a boat circles the 100-acre lake to pick up the donations. They also put a drop box at Country Burger on the corner of Lakewood and Freestad roads for anyone who wants to donate but doesn’t have a house on the lake.
Dick Maine and Larry Jackson captained the boat this year while Larry’s daughter, Shelbey Jackson, and her boyfriend, Mark Lelievre, grabbed donations off the docks. On Sunday afternoon, they maneuvered around buoys, diving boards, decorations and some recent windstorm debris. Shelbey Jackson and Lelievre worked quickly, leaning over the cold gray water to grab bags and boxes, or hopping out of the boat to reach a package, then climbing back in. The pile in the back of the boat grew until it filled one corner and part of another.
Some pick-ups are tricky. There are obstacles on and around the docks, and though the weather was calm on Sunday, there have been years when rain, wind or snow bombarded the boat. Still, no one’s ever fallen in during the collection or dropped so much as a single can, Shelbey Jackson said.
She’s been on every Lake Ki Food Drive boat ride. She helped her grandpa, Robert Freestad, start it in 2004, when she was 13 years old. Maine also was one of the food drive founders.
Freestad had just purchased a new boat. He organized a nighttime Christmas boat parade, where several friends decorated their boats and went around the lake. They offered to pick up food donations if people left them on the docks.
It started as a whim but grew into a December tradition.
The food drive has changed over the years. It’s no longer a parade. It’s no longer at night. Freestad, who was affectionately known as the mayor of Lake Ki, died in 2007.
His family and friends are determined to keep the food drive going.
“The first few years we did this, we had to explain it to everyone,” Shelbey Jackson said. “Now they’re like, ‘Oh, when are you doing it this year?’ ”
The donations are hauled to a local food bank or nonprofit to distribute. This year, they worked with the Stillaguamish Senior Center in Smokey Point.
They don’t set any particular goal for the food drive, Larry Jackson said. It’s just something they like to do each December to help families during the holidays.
“You never know. It’s tough for folks,” he said. “We’re just grateful for whatever we get.”
They have picked up some interesting items in the past. Once, there were leaking sardines, and another time, there was a kitty litter box full of rice. This year, the donations were more typical: a heavy bag loaded with Campbell soups, boxes of cake mix and Jell-O and a sack full of oranges. Though the fruit is perishable, most food banks take fresh produce, too.
Donors wrapped cardboard boxes and paper bags inside of plastic bags to keep them dry.
“See, people are so kind that way,” Larry Jackson said.
By the time they were halfway around the lake, the crew was in their food drive rhythm. Maine eased the boat in alongside a dock and Lelievre, at the bow, reached over and grabbed two garbage bags stretched by the weight of the food inside. He passed them to Larry Jackson, who handed them off to his daughter so she could settle them among the other donations.
The red plastic ties at the top of the bags waved in the wind as Maine steered the boat toward the next dock.
On the plain white garbage bags, someone had written “Merry Christmas” in big red letters.
Kari Bray: 425-339-3439; kbray@heraldnet.com
