It’s spring again and along with the shining things it delivers, such as flowers, spring showers and Easter, it also brings some not-so-helpful stuff — allergies and a low giving time for non-profit agencies.
Local non-profits such as Clothes for Kids and the Edmonds, Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace food banks are in need more than ever right now.
Clothes For Kids director Sharie Ennis said the non-profit agency which provides free clothing to Edmonds School District and Snohomish County Head Start children in need is in “a real serious financial bind.”
“It’s been a non-productive year for grant production,” Ennis said, “and I’m not saying that lightly it has been bad … if we don’t see a significant improvement we might have to shut our doors.”
The program is located at 16725 52nd Ave. W in Lynnwood.
Ennis said the non-profit agency either hasn’t qualified for the grants or hasn’t been awarded the few they’ve applied for.
Berrie Martinis, chair of the Clothes For Kids Board, said personnel to write the grants has also been an issue.
“We are totally dependent on community support. We provide our service for free,” Martinis said, adding she’d like to thank all of those in the community who’ve stepped up in the past to support the agency.
While Clothes For Kids continues looking for ways to lower overhead, she said they still need money for it, along with more volunteers to donate time and talents to help run the organization.
They have plenty of clothing for those in need, however, Ennis said. And one of her worst fears, she said, is that they would need to start charging money for those clothes.
“What really hurts the most is this program has been here 20 years as of January, we have served, on the average, thousands of children in South Snohomish County providing them with free clothes. We’d hate to turn it into having to have to pay,” she said. “It started as a community driven project. In order for it to continue it will have to get community support,” she said.
South County food banks are also starving for support right now.
“It’s a low giving time for most food banks right now,” said Joan Hinjim, director of Concern for Neighbors Food Bank in Mountlake Terrace.
But, she said, there is no better time than now to donate money or actual food to a food bank because each food bank has a chance to match their donations from March and April in the Feinstein Foundation $1 Million Challenge To Help Fight Hunger.
“For the seventh straight year, the Alan Shawn Feinstein Foundation in Rhode Island will divide $1 million among hunger fighting agencies throughout the country,” a press release stated.
Each participating agency will get its share of the $1 million equal to their proportion of the total amount raised by all participants in the nation.
Edmonds Food Bank director Peggy Kennedy said she is excited that they just recently received $1,000 from two women that will be accounted for the challenge.
The Edmonds Food Bank serves about 300 families a week and spends about $3,000 a month on food, she said.
“This time of the year all donations are down. It’s tax time and so many who are so generous around the holidays get busy and forget there are still a lot of hungry people out there,” Kennedy said.
She added, she wanted to thank all of the dedicated volunteers who work at the food bank 50 weeks a year.
“They are the most dedicated and loving people I’ve ever known,” Kennedy said.
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