By Mary Minor / Herald Forum
This is the Thanksgiving story that we all need to hear right now, and it has the added advantage of being true.
During service to our customers at the Snohomish Community Food Bank last Tuesday, the infamous bomb cyclone shut the power off. So, with flashlights and head lamps, we helped 144 households (feeding 424 people) make their way through the food bank. Shopping by Braille, as it were.
Other volunteers were accepting donations from 18 businesses and individuals bringing almost a thousand pounds of turkeys, produce, pantry staples, dairy products and more.
While keeping a close eye on the thermometers in the freezers and refrigerators, Executive Director Megan Kemmit, on the job for only three months, put the word out on Facebook that we need backup freezers and refrigerators. The response from the community was beyond generous. Bob’s Corn and Pumpkin Farm in Maltby was done for the season and Bob told us we could use its facilities for as long as we needed. It was perfect.
After service on Tuesday, the volunteers packed up all of the frozen and refrigerated food into the delivery trucks and headed out to Maltby.
The City of Snohomish provided a generator to supply heat for our volunteers. The power came back on that Thursday night, and service was restored Friday morning. Megan and the volunteers got up before dawn to take the food from Maltby back to the Food Bank, set it all up, and be ready for shoppers by 8 a.m. Fortunately, although they had lights and heat, the freezers and refrigerators were not down to the appropriate temperature, so all of that food had to be transported back to Bob’s Farm afterward.
By Saturday morning, the temperatures were in the appropriate ranges and so the they brought the temperature-sensitive foods back to the Food Bank to stay. This is service above and beyond the call of duty. In order to meet the needs of our neighbors in need, the Snohomish Community Food Bank is planning a buildout on its current building.
While food is always gratefully accepted, we can also put money to work on serving the Snohomish community even better.
Mary Minor is a Snohomish County Food Bank volunteer and lives in Snohomish.
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