Aleece Townsend of Wauna is trying to take stress off the food banks serving the Key Peninsula. For more than 35 years, she has spent her philanthropic energies supporting those who work to provide the services she and her widowed mother were grateful to have during the lean times of her childhood.
The Key Peninsula Food Project was designed to help support the community, according to Townsend.
In 2009, after a move to the small town of Talent, Oregon, Townsend met Paul Giancarlo, co-founder with John Javna of the Ashland Food Project, a new community initiative that aimed to provide a regular supply of food to the Ashland Emergency Food Bank. Giancarlo and his team developed a door-to-door food collection system, making it easy for neighbors to donate food regularly. Within two years, their bimonthly, neighbor-to-neighbor food drive was gathering 20,000 lbs. of food every two months. Today, that bimonthly total exceeds 30,000 lbs., with one quarter of Ashland families donating food regularly.
Townsend signed up to take the program into Talent as their community organizer. She remained in that role until the Almeda fire destroyed Talent in 2020. But Townsend said that although their town was destroyed, the community devastated, and her family forced to move, the food bank in Talent never stopped providing for its community. Today, its Green Bag Solution Food Project supports food banks in over 50 communities around the country, including Gig Harbor, where community support and involvement has been growing since 2022.
Townsend moved to Wauna in 2021, and brought the program with her, founding both the Key Peninsula Food Project and the Gig Harbor Food Project.
Food insecurity affects an estimated 30% of households
in Washington state. Compared to other nearby counties, Pierce County has a higher rate, with one in six children and one in 10 adults — nearly 100,000 people — regularly facing hunger. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s survey of food insecurity released in October
2023 showed a 30% jump in 2022 over 2021. This increase in the number of U.S. households experiencing hunger reversed a decade long decline. In 2021, the number was 33.8 million American households. The number in 2022 rose to 44.2 million, including 13 million children and 5 million seniors. However, many more people, including millions who do not meet the definition of food insecure, turn to the charitable food sector for support.
“Once community coordinators are recruited,” Townsend said, “they reach out to neighbors and friends, who are provided with a reusable bag they have two months to fill with nonperishable staples. Then on an appointed day, all the bags are collected, and the coordinator makes a single trip to the local food bank.”
A website, a Facebook account, and an email list provide donors with their local foodbank’s wish list. Typically, in addition to staples like cereals, canned foods, coffee and tea, nut butters, pasta and sauces, the lists also include toiletries like body wash, shampoo, toothpaste and feminine products.
Coordinators commit to two hours a month. Donors commit to filling one bag every two months. Food banks are doing the work of distributing food already, while resources have diminished as needs have grown.
Willow Eaton, executive director of Key Peninsula Community Services in Home, said its foodbank has seen an increase of over 100 new households joining its client base in 2024. In June, its programs provided for 6,626 client visits, according to Eaton.
Brett Higgins, who manages the food bank at KPCS, said they have already received one shipment from Gig Harbor’s Food Project, and were happy with the infusion of more food products.
Sigurros Welborn, of the Gig Harbor Peninsula FISH Food Bank, said their experience with the Gig Harbor Food Project “has been significantly helpful in keeping shelves stocked, and that having more people donate creates awareness as people donate not just food, but their time and energy, finding other ways to help, creating new neighborhood connections.” The program strengthens community, she said, and the practice of helping to feed neighbors changes perspectives and reactions to hunger.
For more information, go to KeyPenFoodProject.com or GigHarborFoodProject.com. Anyone interested in becoming a coordinator can email Townsend directly at Aleece-Townsend5@gmail.com.
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