For the second year in a row, the Kenai Peninsula Food Bank is partnering with local grocery stores for a food drive. The Freedom From Hunger campaign aims to collect 6,000 pounds of food through the end of September.
Donation bins are out near the entrances of grocery stores in Kenai, Soldotna and Nikiski, including Walmart, Fred Meyer, Save-U-More, Three Bears, Safeway, IGA and M&M Market.
Food bank volunteers will also go door-to-door in those communities. Tami Larson is organizing the drive. She said the goal is to get people to support the food bank ahead of the winter months. She chose the “freedom” theme to coincide with 9/11 and the International Day of Service and Remembrance.
“Our goal is to actually bring in a lot of food to the food bank,” she said. “So that they can serve our local community and people right here at home.”
The food bank is looking for shelf stable staples, like canned fruits and meats, soups, cereal, nuts, oatmeal, pasta and peanut butter, among others.
The drive follows the Kenai-Soldotna Food Fight, which brought in nearly 17,000 pounds of food in June. Johna Beech, the director of the food bank, said those supplies have since dwindled.
“Hunger doesn’t have a season, it’s a year round gig,” she said. “This is going to give us another influx going into October, November, December.”
Beech said demand for food bank services increases in the winter and that new federal changes may keep demand for service high.
Major structural changes are coming next month to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. The federal government changed who’s eligible to receive benefits, resulting in an estimated more than four million people losing benefits this summer. And starting next month states will have to chip in financially to keep the program operational.
Feeding America estimates thirteen-and-a-half percent [WEB: 13.6] of Kenai Peninsula residents are food insecure, meaning they have limited or uncertain access to food. The food bank partners with and supplies food to dozens of organizations across the borough.
“Between the food that we give out here at the food bank, through our diner, through direct service, through our agency partners, or even the mobile pantry which we started in December, we’re pushing annually about a million pounds of food through this building,” Beech said. “It is a need that is happening.”
Food bank volunteers will be at donation sites in Kenai and Soldotna on Saturdays to accept food and financial donations, and to spread information about the food bank and the Freedom From Hunger drive.
