ARLINGTON – Tomorrow, about 90 families in north Snohomish County will eat a Christmas dinner they weren’t sure they could have afforded.
Elizabeth Armstrong / The Herald
For a few weeks after, they’ll still be eating.
The families received gift boxes stuffed with food, including whole turkeys, thanks to the combined efforts of food banks in Arlington and Oso, The Point Church and the Arlington Rotary.
“We had people bringing food to our office for eight weeks,” said the Rev. Mike Zachman, 42, of The Point Church.
Also, on Thursday morning volunteers spent about $7,000 at several grocery stores to augment those donations.
By 11 a.m., assembly lines were set up in the gym at Pioneer Elementary School to fill each family’s food box.
“OK, this one needs oatmeal,” called out Cheryl Manheimer, 41, a church member, as she supervised a group of women sorting the food.
Each box was crammed with an assortment of food, including flour, sugar, pasta, rice, dried beans, canned goods, bread, peanut butter, fruit cocktail, powdered milk, and fresh fruit and vegetables.
The women devised their own sorting method, a process repeated by other groups across the gym. Kids got in on it, too, taking cans rapid-fire from a box held by an adult and dropping one each into the gift boxes spread out on the floor.
The volunteers collected enough food to feed some of the families for two weeks, Zachman estimated.
Some of the recipients who live alone might be able to stretch their gift of food for as long as four weeks, he said.
Elizabeth Armstrong / The Herald
The food banks identified the families in need in their areas based on people they have been helping, he said.
Fifteen families in the Oso area will also get bags full of gifts, said Kelly Merritt, 39, of the Oso Food Bank.
With the food boxes coming from Arlington, money the Oso Food Bank normally uses to feed families was redirected to buy the gifts, Merritt said.
“I just want to say how grateful we are to The Point,” she said.
By 1 p.m., volunteer drivers had grabbed frozen turkeys, sacks of potatoes and the food boxes, and started spreading out from Stanwood to Darrington to Granite Falls.
Duane Rhodes, 58, of the Arlington Rotary headed south to Jo Anne Thompson’s house.
Thompson, 48, said she appreciated the help. She used to help with food banks when she was working full-time, she said. Now that her money is tighter, she said it was nice to see firsthand how helpful Christmas food drives can be.
“I’ll probably be OK next year,” Thompson said.
Back in his truck, Rhodes knew how Thompson felt. He started helping with food drives years ago because of his childhood memories.
“When I was a kid, I remember our family receiving Christmas baskets,” Rhodes said.
He paused, thinking back.
“My mother would cry afterward,” he said.
Reporter Scott Morris: 425-339-3292 or smorris@heraldnet.com.
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