Food Backpacks 4 Kids Clothing Giveaway Benefits Hundreds of Families

We are the conduit for it but really the entire community works to make it happen and benefits from it.”

By the Numbers

FB4K runs five separate food programs supported entirely by donations.

● Backpacks filled with child-friendly food are available to any student in the Peninsula district once a week. FB4K distributes an average of 500 backpacks each month to every elementary school in the district and two middle schools.

● All three high schools and five other schools maintain Care Cupboards for students to meet immediate needs or take food home. Every student is encouraged to access snacks or meal items from the Care Cupboards.

● Over the summer, the FB4K Lunch in the Park program fed 200 children twice a week for eight weeks (3,200 total sack lunches).

● The FB4K Family Pantry is available to anyone in need and is open Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 12 to 6 p.m. It is located at 9127 154th Avenue Court NW above Key Center. The pantry has an average of 400 family visits a month (185 individual families served).

● FB4K provides food from its pantry to any Gig Harbor or Key Peninsula family unable to shop for themselves. Over 200 home deliveries are made each month.

● In August, FB4K received and distributed over 31,000 pounds of food. The total in 2022 was 264,694 pounds.

● Since August, FB4K received donations from Gensco ($27,153), Captain Seahawk and KamHawk ($4,500), Key IGA ($3,400), 200 backpacks from The Canterwood Foundation, and shared a $29,000 check from the Peninsula Logging Show & Festival with KP Little League.

Hundreds of families descended on the Key Peninsula Civic Center Aug. 25 to 27 to find clothes for the coming school year. At no cost.

Food Backpacks 4 Kids, the local nonprofit known mostly for its programs to feed families on the Key Peninsula and in Gig Harbor, was the force behind the fourth annual clothing giveaway. 

For a month before the event people brought lightly used or new clothing for men, women and kids of all ages at 10 donation sites — three on the KP and the others in Gig Harbor. A core group of about 10 volunteers brought the items to a space loaned by Purdy Cost Less Pharmacy where they were sorted, bagged and stored.

“We brought about 2,000 bags to the civic center the Thursday before the giveaway,” said Zaida Woodworth, executive director of FB4K. It took two trips in a box truck loaned to them by Drive Thru Feed. By Friday morning the civic center floor was filled with clothes, socks and shoes all organized by size and gender, and families were lined up outside well before the scheduled noon start time.

Ashley Florek, a mother of five, was shopping by herself on Friday afternoon. “We do a lot of our school clothes shopping here,” she said. “We came last year as well. There is always so much good stuff here. I donated a bunch of stuff this year. I hold onto things the kids grow out of. It’s great to turn in your old clothes and get new ones.”

“It is great,” said Melanie Trampenau, who was with her son. “We get new-to-us clothes. I still wear the clothes I got last year.”

Some families returned each day to check out newly available clothing as space became available on the tables.

Woodworth said the event arose during the Covid pandemic. Evergreen Elementary School held back-to-school events in the past, and she and Michelle Johnson, director of communications for FB4K, had discussed expanding that to serve the whole community.

Then the pandemic hit. “It became clear that no one could donate any of their things,” Woodward said. “Schools might or might not be reopening, everyone needed resources badly, clothing was something people could not afford, and people were throwing clothes into the garbage because there was nowhere to donate it.”

“And so, like we always do, we said we will find a way,” Johnson said. “And we did.”

The first year, 2020, was small by comparison. People dropped clothes off at their Key Center location. “Still, we were swimming in donations,” Johnson said.

“People are grateful for the sustainability, that we are recycling and reusing,” Woodworth said. “The clothes they have are going to other families. We are the conduit for it but really the entire community works to make it happen and benefits from it.”

The civic center donated the space for the event. About 30 volunteers — including educators, community members and FB4K families — helped with the set-up and then worked throughout the event to restock tables. The Red Barn Youth Center supplied clothing racks. Metropolitan Market of Tacoma, Starbucks on Kimball Drive and the FB4K board supplied volunteers with snacks or lunches.

By Sunday at noon, when the event ended, Johnson estimated that about 95% of the donations had been given away. What remained was taken to Evergreen Elementary, Kids Kloset in Port Orchard and Fish Foodbank in Gig Harbor for distribution.

For more information about FB4K, go to foodbackpacks4kids.org.