PORT ANGELES — Donors did more than clean out their pantries for the Salvation Army-Port Angeles Corps food drive.
Most spent their own money to replenish the organization’s dwindling food-bank pantry, bringing more than 2,500 pounds of staples including peanut butter, pasta, canned fruit and vegetables and other non-perishables in just seven hours between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. Saturday to the organization’s truck in the Safeway parking lot on Third Street.
Maj. Scott Ramsey, director with his wife, Maj. Cherilee Ramsey, of the organization’s Clallam County operations, said each of the estimated 250 individual donations consisted of about 10 pounds of food, easily 90 percent of it newly purchased.
“They were shopping for food and directly giving it to us,” he said midday Saturday while workers stacked the food in a Salvation Army truck.
“It was fresh and new,” he said.
“This is tremendous for a small town like this.”
Scott Ramsey, who helped the cause by handing out food-drive flyers in the Safeway, said the success of the event will allow the Salvation Army to continue feeding the needy until its annual holiday season food drive.
Nearly 100 people, including one from Sequim with a Grocery Outlet bag, had dropped off food by noon at the box-truck staffed by Salvation Army helpers, including volunteer Frankie Mazzei and staffer Damon Hopkins.
Hopkins said he’d been to five other Salvation Army food drives and was amazed at the generosity of Saturday’s food-drive donors.
“It makes the job a lot easier, more fulfilling,” he said while taking a break.
The Salvation Army gets about 30 percent of its food from donations, Scott Ramsey said.
The organization pays a poundage fee to get food from Northwest Harvest, a statewide nonprofit food-bank distributor, and also buys food from local markets and Safeway, which recently gave the Port Angeles Corps a $1,000 Child Hunger grant.
But it hasn’t been enough.
Scott Ramsey told of a recent spike in people seeking meals and food-bank staples at the organization’s headquarters at 206 S. Peabody St.
Between March and April, the organization saw a double-digit increase in clients that has remained at that level, he said.
The number of families visiting the food bank grew by about 20 percent in one month to about 300 — and has stayed there, he said.
“Things are getting more expensive, and they’re having a hard time making ends meet,” said Cherilee Ramsey, who was sitting at a nearby table to accept donations.
April also saw an increase in individuals at breakfasts from 8 a.m. to 8:40 a.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday and lunches from noon to 1 p.m. Monday through Friday.
“We just went from a high of 2,400 [meals] to a high of over 3,000, and we are never under 2,900,” Scott Ramsey said.
Three-quarters of those who get food from the Salvation Army ask for help at the end of the month when their money runs out, he added.
“We are seeing a good three-fourths of the people the last week and a half of the month,” he said.
Many low-income residents are able to handle their food costs through monthly pay, food stamps or other beginning-of-the-month funding, but by the end of the month, they need some help to get to the next month, he said.
“We do have some folks who are campers, are homeless, living in a car,” he said.
“Those are people we are seeing daily in our feeding program.”
Many who get food come to Port Angeles because they know someone who lives in the city and expect to find work.
“They find it’s a more rural town than they assumed,” he said.
Some of those helped by the organization lent a hand Saturday for the food drive, he said.
“It’s a sense of people who get help wanting to give back.”
The organization will be able to serve more clients by early next year when it moves into a new, larger facility.
Construction is expected to begin this week on renovations to the former NAPA Auto Parts store and auto repair garage at 123 S. Peabody, Scott Ramsey said.
The new facility, which will include a hygiene center, a laundry area and a full commercial kitchen, will be ready for occupancy by next March, he predicted.
It will have a backup generator that will make the building functional for the community during a disaster.
“That’s the part I’m excited about,” he said.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
