SEQUIM — The Sequim and Port Angeles food banks are joint recipients of the North Olympic Land Trust’s Farmer of the Year award.
The annual award honors individuals or organizations that have a lasting and significant impact on the ability of the local lands to provide food and sustenance for the community, Land Trust representatives said.
“Particularly in the years since COVID, few organizations have done more to bring the bounty of our local farms to our community’s families in need,” said Erika Lindholm, acting executive director of the Land Trust.
Having food sourced from local farms means food bank visitors can use the produce for much longer than a day or two that the grocery store-donated food lasts.
“Everybody deserves to have nutrient-rich food,” Sequim Food Bank Executive Director Andra Smith said.
“And our customers can tell the difference between fresh local produce and that which is left over and donated from the grocery stores,” noted Emily Dexter, executive director of the Port Angeles Food Bank.
Both organizations have benefited local farms which donate excess harvest. In 2018, the Sequim Food Bank received United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) grant dollars that allowed them to pay farmers to grow food for their food bank.
The relationships, contracts and price sheets that were developed with the grant provided a foundation of direct purchasing programming that has developed in the years since COVID.
In the early days of the pandemic, USDA emergency funding purchased truckloads of produce from farmers and shipped it to food banks around the country.
“We were getting thousands of pounds of produce from Nebraska, which was ridiculous since we had so many farmers here who were struggling just like our customers,” Dexter said.
Dexter and Smith worked with the Clallam County WSU Extension and WSDA to have relief funds sent directly to communities so they could contract directly with local farms.
This year, with the help of WSU Extension’s Farm to Food Bank coordinator, there was more than $150,000 of produce and meat sourced from 35 peninsula farms and distributed through 18 different food banks and food access sites across the peninsula.
“Andra and Emily’s vision and commitment to working with local farmers has made this happen — they have truly led the way in this work, such that many other food banks and pantries are seeing the benefits of this approach,” said Clea Rome, director of the WSU Extension.
Port Angeles Food Bank serves as the Regional Distribution Organization (RDO) for these food access organizations. Because it has a facility large enough to receive and store large quantities of food, it is the clearing house for receipt of local abundance.
Every Tuesday, other sites can pick up what they can distribute to their clients as well as drop off anything of which they have more than they need.
Sequim Food Bank often brings produce from the farms in the Sequim-Dungeness region.
The Port Angeles Food Bank works to make food more accessible to its customers. Dexter recalled an experiment they did after receiving a pallet of beets fresh and completely unprocessed from a local farm.
“The first week, we put them out in our market, dirt and all, and very few were taken. The second week, we washed them, and more were taken, but there was still a lot left. The third week, we boiled and peeled them and put them out in small containers, and they were all gone by the end of the day.”
Flash freezing and packaging fresh hardy greens and cruciferous vegetables from local farms is another way Port Angeles Food Bank works to make local bounty available to customers throughout the year.
In addition to getting food from the land to their customers, both Port Angeles and Sequim food banks provide food back to local farmers. As food they collect passes expiration dates, they donate it to livestock farmers for their animals. Last year, the two food banks combined provided more than 70,000 pounds of feed to livestock farmers in the area.
Like food banks around the country, Port Angeles and Sequim food banks have seen the demand for their services increase since the pandemic.
Last year, Sequim Food Bank had 20,000 visits from 3,700 unique households. The Port Angeles Food Bank had 44,000 visits from 4,800 unique households.
As cost-of-living increases have put pressure on households everywhere, there is no expectation that the need for emergency food support will drop. Recent data indicates that in 2019, 2,200 households in Jefferson and Clallam counties combined accessed federal food resources. In 2024, that number increased to more than 9,800 households.
Dexter and Smith said they are gratified to see the work to get locally produced foods to the broader community working well, but they added a lot of funding for this work will be going away next year as the COVID-relief programs term out.
Both food banks are nonprofits, and local donations help them feed and support their communities.
The award was presented at North Olympic Land Trust’s 22nd annual Harvest Celebration fundraiser, during which they were applauded by more than 160 Land Trust supporters at Field Arts & Events Hall in Port Angeles.
To learn more, visit sequimfoodbank.org and portangelesfoodbank.org.
Andra Smith, executive director of the Sequim Food Bank, left, and volunteer Isabelle Dunlop prepare some donations from River Run Farm in October 2021. (Matthew Nash/Olympic Peninsula News Group file)
