PORT ANGELES — Once food banks in Clallam County began comparing figures last year, they found that nearly one-quarter of those living in the county had used their services in 2014, said the director of the Port Angeles Food Bank.
The Clallam County Food Bank Coalition was established last May, Jessica Hernandez, executive director of the Port Angeles Food Bank, told about 15 people at a Port Angeles Business Association meeting Tuesday.
“When we put all of our information together, we saw — and this is 2014 because [we] have not put [our] numbers together yet for 2015 — in 2014, our food banks served one in every four people in Clallam County,” she said.
The coalition includes the Port Angeles Food Bank, Serenity House, the Port Angeles Salvation Army, Sequim Food Bank, Olympic Community Action Programs’ Senior Nutrition Program and area tribes.
Hernandez did not provide the numbers served in 2014 and said that countywide, statistics for 2015 are not expected until at least February.
The numbers have been rising, at least at the Port Angeles Food Bank, she said.
Continuing a trend established in 2013 and 2014, the Port Angeles Food Bank saw a 10 percent increase in the number of visitors seeking food last year.
“Year over year for the past three years, we have seen an increase of [about] 12 percent in clients,” Hernandez said.
“Each year, I am serving anywhere from 10 [percent] to 12 percent more people than the year before.
“And that is not people coming back every time, every month. Those are individuals, another 12 percent, that I didn’t see the previous year. They had never walked through my doors.”
Altogether in 2015, the Port Angeles Food Bank served 20,186 individuals — representing a total of 9,030 households, Hernandez said.
Of that, 2,157 individuals were new clients who had never before patronized the food bank, she said.
Broken down by age group, the food bank served 5,734 juveniles, 10,301 adults aged 19 to 54 and 4,151 adults older than 55.
Also in 2015, the food bank received about 250,000 pounds of food through general donations and 15,000 pounds of gleaned produce — extra fruits and veggies collected and donated by farmers and gardeners, Hernandez said.
During the year, the Port Angeles Food Bank — acting as a repository for various other food banks throughout Clallam County — distributed about 50,000 pounds of food to other organizations, Hernandez said.
“We know that our voices together are going to be louder and more impactful,” Hernandez said.
Some of the “most tremendous partnerships” have been “with the fellow food banks and meal programs,” she said.
“The overall health of Clallam County [can] only be addressed by a multifaceted approach, a multi-agency approach.”
Before the coalition was founded, the members “weren’t working together,” Hernandez said.
“They weren’t speaking. They were . . . separate silos.”
That no longer is the case, she said.
“We have been meeting monthly. We are sharing abundances,” she said.
That will someday include joint fundraisers in addition to sharing food stuffs, she added.
“Working together as a collective has been a tremendously powerful experience thus far, and [we] are really excited going into 2016,” she said.
“We are looking at writing some goals, writing a mission statement [and] getting our efforts even further put together.”
A main focus of the Port Angeles Food Bank is “feeding kids,” Hernandez said.
“We all know the children are our future and they are the ones we need to make sure we are taking care of, so at the Port Angeles Food Bank, we are growing our Friday Food Bag program,” she said.
“Every week during the school year, we provide supplemental food for the weekend for 500 elementary kids.”
That helps because “studies show that kids that are hungry have more discipline problems, they are sick more often, they miss more school,” Hernandez said.
Adults also need good nutrition, she said.
“Hunger is related to the greater issues that we face as a community,” she said.
“If you don’t have the nutrition and the sustenance that you need, you look to fill that gap elsewhere,” including through the substance and alcohol abuse, she said.
Feeding senior citizens is a priority, Hernandez said.
“We are finding different ways to reach those very vulnerable populations because it is not just homeless people,” she said.
“These are our neighbors. These are the people that are family members or a kid who is struggling or maybe dealing with drug addiction and often on the streets.
“We all know people like that, and those are the folks [we] are trying to lift up.”
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Reporter Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or cmcdaniel@peninsuladailynews.com.
