By Rob Ollikainen
Peninsula Daily News
PORT ANGELES — The tuna is in.
Now it’s just a matter of counting up the cans.
The 17th annual Tuna Fish Drive ended Monday.
The goal of the campaign that benefits North Olympic Peninsula food banks was to surpass last year’s total of 21,917 cans of fish.
“Today was the last day to turn in cans, but I haven’t heard the final results yet,” drive Chairman Tim Crowley said Monday evening.
The drive provides food banks and their clients with a inexpensive protein that is easy to store and prepare.
The tuna will be distributed to the Port Angeles, Sequim, Forks and Clallam Bay food banks and the Salvation Army.
Local governments and service clubs hold competitions with each other to see who can contribute the most.
Clallam County employees won their showdown with the city of Port Angeles by contributing 8,381 cans to the tuna drive, County Auditor Patty Rosand said.
“The real winners were the hungry people of Clallam County,” Rosand said.
It will take a few days to process the totals because service clubs members also send in checks, Crowley said.
Service clubs like the Kiwanis, Rotary, Elks and Soroptimist International have trophies for the winners.
Banks, grocery stores and other businesses had barrels set up for this year’s campaign, which began March 9.
Church groups and Olympic Medical Center also contributed.
“We get a pretty good representation,” Crowley said.
About half of the tuna donations come from service clubs and the rest come from the general population.
Tuna originally was chosen for the food drive because of the demand for the protein-rich fish.
Suppliers like Northwest Harvest had far more rice and beans than tuna, and local schools were already running a successful peanut butter drive, Crowley said.
He said the community contributed about 8,000 cans in the first tuna drive.
“It kind of grew from there,” he said.
“Back then, tuna was 35 or 40 cents a can.
“Now, if you go to the supermarket, you’ll pay around $1, unless you can find it on special.”
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
