West Bonner food bank’s cupboards nearly bare

Hungry people in west Bonner County aren’t getting as much help from the local food bank as they once were because of a donation shortage. And organizers say the problem is getting worse.

“If we have enough to carry us through next month, I’ll be surprised,” said June Cotter, a volunteer with the West Bonner County Food Bank. “Our shelves are the poorest I’ve ever seen them.”

Located in tiny Oldtown, the food bank’s out-of-sight location away from main street, plus hardships created by rising gas prices and soaring property taxes, have contributed to such a drop in donations that families in need are now allowed one food box every other month instead of monthly, organizer Karen Squires said.

“We figured we had to (in order) to conserve what we had … so we could help people at least once in a while,” Squires said.

Each month the food bank serves about 400 families from Oldtown and the surrounding rural areas with food boxes and extra food provided by the local grocery store, Squires said. Those families are still looking to the food bank for help, but the food baskets are becoming less frequent and less filling.

The boxes used to provide about two weeks’ worth of food, including canned fruit and vegetables, bread and packaged foods. But donations just aren’t keeping up with demand.

“I can say honestly in the last five months I haven’t seen what it would take to make 10 boxes,” Cotter said.

“It gets tough to turn around and say ‘no,’” she continued. “It just breaks your heart.”

The number of people turning to the food bank for help this month is higher than any other month this year – a big change from past years, Squires said.

“Generally during the summer our numbers go down,” she said.

The West Bonner Food Bank relies on community donations and a small grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as donations from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. USDA donations have dwindled along with community donations, Squires said, from about 15 to 20 food items every month or so, to about five items.

Cotter said the food bank’s savior has been its thrift store. Donated clothes are sold at bargain prices, with the proceeds used to buy food. But even the quality of donated clothes has declined significantly, Cotter said.

The cash donations that used to come in about once a month have disappeared, she said, and organizing a food drive is very difficult because of a lack of committed volunteers.

Squires said she and the other volunteers do what they can to raise awareness about the food bank and the need for donations, but with property taxes and gas prices on a steady incline, most new people visiting the food bank are there for help – not to donate.

Alice Wallace, executive director of the Bonner County Food Bank in Sandpoint, said although she isn’t seeing the drastic drop in donations that’s plaguing west Bonner County, summer is always a difficult time for such services.

“This is the time of year that not everybody remembers the food bank and these services,” Wallace said.

A variety of factors play into the food bank’s shortage, Squires said, but what she keeps coming back to is the isolated location in a rural county.

“There are people that don’t even know we’re here,” she said.