A Baptist church has taken over the distribution of free food in Airway Heights after a regional food bank canceled its contract with the town’s previous food bank because of what it said were repeated rules violations.

The Airway Heights Baptist Church has held three of the town’s twice-monthly food-distribution days, using a new approach styled after an outdoors farmers’ market. Last Saturday, more than 80 families collected food at the church’s parking lot, up from 28 families on June 3, the first day of the giveaway, the Rev. Dale Jenkins said.

“It just seems like the right thing for a church to do, to help people who need food to get food,” he said.

Second Harvest Inland Northwest, which provides food and equipment assistance to 300 neighborhood food banks in Eastern Washington and in North Idaho, canceled its contract with the Airway Heights Food Bank because too few volunteers left it unable to meet storage requirements, Second Harvest Executive Director Jason Clark said. It was down to three volunteers before the contract was canceled, he said. The thrift store that helped fund the food bank also closed.

Second Harvest inspected the food bank every six months, but repeated – almost weekly – complaints from customers last fall prompted inspectors to check it out early, he said. Second Harvest halted food shipments on several occasions, he said.

Robin Mallory, the Airway Heights Food Bank’s previous director, said the food bank closed at the end of June because it couldn’t pay rent. She called the food handling violations bogus, saying nobody ever approached the food bank with concerns.

The Airway Heights Food Bank was incorporated with the state as a nonprofit corporation in September 2002, according to the Washington Secretary of State’s office. Its license is set to expire this September.

Jenkins said the church would continue to hold the outdoor-market-style giveaways as long as good weather remains. Second Harvest is providing a refrigerated truck on giveaway days so clients can get perishable food items, he said.

Clients should bring proof of identification for them and their family members and proof of their address.

Some of the food costs the church a very small amount, Jenkins said, and the church plans to add that cost into next year’s budget.

“If God wants us to do it from now to eternity, then we’ll keep doing it as long as he wants us to,” Jenkins said.