By Douglas Buell
dbuell@marysvilleglobe.com
MARYSVILLE – The Marysville Community Food Bank is resourceful in its ways to create a steadier supply of food for needy families that extends beyond the holidays.
Occasional food drives, produce grown in home and community gardens, and weekend meals program for school children all help to augment supplies during the doldrum times of year when donations are down, but the need is still the same.
Food bank officials think they’ve found an easier way to build that foundation of giving – in a “cool green bag.”
In May, they launched A Simple Gesture, a new door-to-door food collection initiative that will provide a steady supply of food to help feed the hungry in the Marysville, Tulalip and Lakewood.
The food bank will provide residents and business owners with a reusable green bag to fill with non-perishable food items, said Amy Howell, assistant food bank director, and “we’ll even remind you a few days before the scheduled pickup.
“Our goal is to make it as easy as possible to donate,” she said.
Leave the bag of food on your front porch, and a volunteer will pick it up on the second Saturday of each even-numbered month, and leave an empty bag for the next pickup.
“People want to help; this is an easy, simple way,” Howell said. “An extra item or two each shopping trip is all it takes to fill up your bag.”
Howell has wanted to launch the program since hearing about it at a Northwest Harvest conference for food banks, but other commitments kept it on the back burner.
A Simple Gesture is active in 30 communities across the country, including several in Western Washington.
Anacortes is one success story. The group’s first pickup in October 2015 recorded 310 donors and 4,000 pounds of food and toiletries. The value was about $7,500 collected for the Salvation Army food bank, which serves about 175 families a month in Anacortes and La Conner, organizers said. The program has since grown to 100 volunteers, 500 donors and collected 30,000 pounds of food.Closer to home, Stanwood Camano Food Bank started in 2015 with a few registered donors. A year later, the food bank had 200 homeowners involved and collected more than 8,000 pounds of food, with a value of $15,000, food bank officials said.
With numbers like that, A Simple Gesture’s value to Marysville could be overwhelming.
If only 10 percent of local residents donated an extra non-perishable food item through A Simple Gesture each time they shop for groceries, those simple gestures would have the potential to provide 150,000 to 200,000 pounds of food to neighbors each year, an amount equal to five months of food given out at the food bank, Howell said.
The most-wanted items include canned tuna, soup, chili, fruits and vegetables, cereal, crackers, rice, peanut butter, jam, pasta and sauces, and sugar-free specialty goods.
Howell said it isn’t always one person who makes a simple gesture worthwhile. A couple of kind-hearted women decided to coordinate getting green bags filled on their block, and pool the donations for a single pickup by the food bank.
In addition to homes and neighborhoods, local government, businesses and churches are also on board. City Hall, the parks department, and HomeStreet Bank have bags that their employees are filling up.
First pickup for the bags, donated by State Farm Insurance, is July 1. Residents can register at www.marysvillefoodbank.org/asimplegesture. To register in person, visit the food bank or HomeStreet Bank in Safeway Plaza.For details email asimplegesture.mcfb@frontier.com or call 360-658-1054.
