On a cold, wet Tuesday morning the week before Christmas, Kelly Pritchard hung bags full of food from the handlebars of her dark green bike outside the Foothills Food Bank.
Pritchard, who lives with chronic pain, hasn’t had a car for about two months since her car was damaged, she said, adding she’s had bikes stolen in the past.
“Now I got this green one, maybe nobody likes green,” she said with a laugh. She demonstrated how she tries to balance the weight of the food bags on each side of the bike. Her husband would walk the mile and a half home pushing more groceries in a buggy behind her.
This week, Pritchard picked up a bit more food for her family than she usually would knowing she wouldn’t be able to visit the following week, she said.
The food bank in Maple Falls will be closed for the winter holidays Tuesday and Thursday the week of Christmas, its usual distribution days, reopening on New Year’s Eve. The Whatcom Asset Building Coalition has released a guide for those looking for meals during the holidays and navigating food bank closures.
Bellingham Food Bank will be closed on Christmas and the day after, with no home deliveries on Dec. 27. The drive-through program is closed until Jan. 14, when it will reopen at its new location at 1824 Ellis St.
At Foothills, the rainy day was clients’ second-to-last chance to pick up food before the weeklong closure. The food bank wasn’t overwhelmingly busy, though, as its offerings were not any different than usual.
The food bank’s clientele has increased significantly since Operations Manager Darryl Hirschkorn started at Foothills in 2022, but growth has slowed in recent months.
“I think we’ve pretty much capped out the community,” he said, meaning the food bank is already reaching most who need it. That said: “Who knows? I mean (the community is) still growing all the time.”
Countywide, demand at food banks has risen 127% since 2021, according to a Whatcom County Food Bank Network presentation before the county council last summer. Whatcom food banks serve 9,000 households weekly. In October, the county council designated food security a public health priority.
The reasons behind the increased need are complex, said Stephanie Sisson, spokesperson for Bellingham Food Bank. Numbers of people using food banks began to rise significantly a few years back, when COVID-era benefits went away and inflation worsened, she said.
At Bellingham Food Bank, the December holidays don’t bring a noticeable increase in traffic, Sisson said. Slightly more people may visit the food bank in winter overall.
“People are hungry all year round,” she said. Holidays add “more pressure, but it doesn’t really change the circumstance.”
Ken Owsley, director of Project Hope Food Bank in Lynden, has had a different experience. The Lynden food bank sees an uptick in demand between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, he said.
“I think people have an expectation of a little bit extra at the holidays,” Owsley said. Leading up to the holiday, Project Hope is offering a special “Christmas menu” featuring items like canned sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce and stuffing along with smoked ham, chickens and turkeys.
Foothills provided special Thanksgiving food in November, serving 387 households in all. The lead up to the December holidays was more muted, however.
Hirschkorn did prepare for a slightly busier time by bulking up his produce supply: carrots, potatoes, cabbage and other essentials.
“That’s what this community likes,” he explained, given its sizable Eastern European contingent.
Pritchard has been coming to the food bank since she moved to the area about eight years ago. She comes most Tuesdays.
“Things are so expensive now, it’s hard to get by,” she said. “They don’t give you a lot in food stamps, but what level we get helps a lot and then the food bank makes up for the rest.”
Distribution hours wound down and the flow of clients slowed to a trickle. Melodylynn Felkey Gorski, the last to get food, made her way around the food bank pushing a big shopping cart. She was picking up groceries for her family, she said.
Felkey Gorski wasn’t sure yet what her plans were for celebrating the holidays, but said she might use some of the food she’d collected for a holiday meal.
At the food bank, “it’s pretty much all here if you know how to do it,” she said. “And I can do it.”
Sophia Gates covers rural Whatcom and Skagit counties. She is a Washington State Murrow Fellow whose work is underwritten by taxpayers and available outside CDN's paywall. Reach her at sophiagates@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 131.
