MARYSVILLE — As the Marysville Community Food Bank kicked off its Christmas dinner basket distribution Dec. 18, Dell Deierling reflected on the changes that the food bank has seen over the past year.

Deierling, president of the food bank, estimated that he and his volunteers would serve close to 630 Christmas baskets this year, as opposed to the 690 Thanksgiving baskets.

It’s normal for the food bank to serve more Thanksgiving than Christmas baskets. However, even this year’s number of Thanksgiving baskets is down from the roughly 700 served last year.

“The numbers of people that we’ve served this year have been down overall, but in talking to them, I feel like the ones we are serving are in greater need,” Deierling said. “I’ve heard more horrific stories of circumstances that have befallen people this year.

“A lot of our Christmas clients are just starting to face issues, right now, that are entirely new to them, and it’s heartbreaking,” he added. “I think the gap between the haves and have-nots is getting bigger.”

Deierling sees this gap when he meets with one family that’s struggling to find a place to stay, and the next person to walk through his doors is able to hand off an armful of donations for the Toy Store.

“It’s great when people who have the resources can contribute and say, ‘Merry Christmas,’ as they walk out the door, but a lot of our clients have a much harder time saying that,” Deierling said. “I’ve told my volunteers that, regardless of what state our clients are in, we want to do our best to make their holidays merrier.”

The food bank had plenty of help in giving its clients happier holidays Dec. 18, with a crew of nearly 50 volunteers that included not only plenty of familiar faces from the Rotary and Kiwanis, but also a number of missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“If we’re talking about the year as a whole, the kids from Marysville-Pilchuck High School rebounded from last year,” Deierling said, reporting that high schoolers generated 24,000 pounds of food and $1,250 in financial donations in 2015. “We were actually lagging in our year-to-year donations to date, until the school kids and the fire department came through for us.” Looking ahead to next year, Deierling hopes to seek out what he deemed “pockets of need” throughout the community.

“The question is, who is it that we’re still not serving?” Deierling asked. “What can we do to take care of them? We’ll have to conduct a needs assessment, and yes, that probably means asking for more financial support to fund it. “But we have so many partners in taking care of people, from the All-City Food Drive to the grants we get from the Tulalip Tribes, that I don’t think it should take that much,” he added. “We’ve set some big goals, but with the community’s continued assistance, I think we can meet them.”