Managing food insecurity key to a strong local food system

Local grocery shoppers pause and compare prices. They add up the rising costs of food and wonder how they will afford their next meal. This is how Arin Magill, director of the La Conner Sunrise Food Bank, defines food insecurity: concern about where the next meal will come from.

The number of people feeling food insecure is growing locally. Magill reported the food bank’s clientele has increased 15% in the last two months. Statistics gathered by Skagit County Public Health for its “Food Security Data Report” issued in August indicate 11% of county residents are food insecure, including 16% of Skagit’s children. These figures are a few years old and likely underrepresent the need.

The Sunrise Food Bank distributes about 3,000 pounds of food every week to approximately 130 local households. Volunteers deliver to about 30% of those households where residents’ mobility is difficult. Anyone is welcome Mondays at the Masonic Hall food distribution site on South Third and Benton Streets in La Lonner, 2:30-5 p.m.

“We serve anyone. We don’t need to know anyone’s story,” said Magill. “We just really work hard at being welcoming and break down any barriers of awkwardness.”

The thirty volunteers who make Sunrise Food Bank hum with activity see it as a community-supported system. “You know, we’re all just people trying to make it,” said Magill.

The food bank’s goal is to offer supplemental food. Retired people whose limited incomes no longer stretch enough make up the most substantial recent increase in demand, Magill says. Many new clients receive no other benefits.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sunrise Food Bank developed a drive-thru model. This service makes some clients more comfortable. Volunteers record dietary needs and preferences and bring boxes to people in their vehicles.

A grant-funded partnership with Puget Sound Food Hub make this a community-wide effort that provides boxes of “wonderful organic produce,” said Magill. “It’s such a privilege to pass that on.”

The La Conner food bank is part of the Skagit County Food Bank Association. Collaborating local food banks pool resources and share benefits.

The county’s Population Health Trust builds on this coordination. At its Food Security Workgroup meeting last month it issued a “Food Security Report,” a product of eight months of work.

The workgroup envisions Skagit County developing a “resilient local food system that provides equitable access to nutritious, sustainable, and culturally appropriate food for all.”

Kristen Ekstran, a community health analyst with Skagit County Public Health and facilitator with the Population Health Trust, calls the approach a collective impact model. By setting a common vision and directing attention in the same direction, said Ekstran, the community can come together around a common set of challenges, like food insecurity, allowing individual organizations to direct resources toward agreed priorities. It encourages the sort of collaboration that the Sunrise Food Bank relies on.

After completing its report, the workgroup has reformulated as a Food Policy Council. The council now has to implement the strategies outlined in the report. Its first meeting was earlier in December.

Magill felt encouraged by the workgroup, which received feedback from the food banks. “It makes us feel like we’re being heard,” said Magill. “We’re hoping that those reports will draw attention to what is really happening in our valley and bring awareness” and resources to people who are food insecure.