Two decades of helping families

Walking through the aisles of Bay 1, Cathy Larson took careful note of every stockpiled supply and cataloged provision.

“That cereal,” the manager noted, pointing to four rows of boxed breakfasts, “that’ll be gone quickly. We run out of that and milk the fastest.”

While today many of the shelves were fully stocked and the walk-in freezer was lined with provisions, Larson knows that empty aisles are always just one busy week away.

That’s the cyclical nature of the Post Falls Food Bank, which recently celebrated its 20th year of operation.

Larson, manager of the food bank for the past 16 years, has watched the operation grow from a straightforward food provider for a few hundred people into a multifaceted community outreach program helping thousands every month.

“When I first got here, it was just a food bank,” Larson said, adding that in the first year, it served approximately 180 kids and fewer than 100 families. So far this year, she said, the food bank has served nearly 24,000 individuals.

Helping the needy has been a lifelong endeavor for the North Idaho native. Prior to joining the Post Falls Food Bank staff, Larson was a government-sponsored Volunteers in Service to America volunteer in Coeur d’Alene in the early 1980s.

As a single mother of one, she also relied on the city’s food bank service for her family’s needs.

Before long, Larson’s appetite for helping others landed her a position on the Coeur d’Alene staff. “Before I knew it, I was the site manager,” she said, adding that she was able to bring Second Harvest, the nation’s largest hunger-relief organization, to the area.

In 1987, Larson made the jump to Coeur d’Alene’s nascent neighbor to the west, Post Falls, where the small town’s food bank was just getting started in its original home at Cavalry Lutheran Church.

Once there, the new manager brought Second Harvest to the River City as well.

“It was things I learned from other jobs and noticing things they didn’t have here,” Larson said of the various services she thought the area needed.

Since Larson has been at the helm, the Post Falls Food Bank has moved into a more spacious building featuring a reception area, office and two bays for storage. It has an army of more than 250 volunteers, many of whom make weekly gleaning trips to collect excess food from residents and grocery stores.

Meanwhile, the food bank’s programs have branched out to include back-to-school supply drives, spaghetti feeds, pet food drives, seeds for gardening and a Keep Warm program that outfits senior citizens, who are struggling to pay their utility bills, with warm garments.

Larson said that list of services merely reflects the food bank’s efforts to help those in need as the area’s population continues to balloon.

“It grows every year,” she said of the food bank’s list of clients. “We probably see no less than 10 percent growth on everything. … I knew it would grow, but I didn’t know it would grow like it has.”

For a donation-based service to succeed, a pillar of community support must be in place. Larson said the community of Post Falls has shown that support in spades. “Our community is awesome to us,” she said.

For example, the provisions sitting in Bay 2 were collected during last April’s Community Spring Food Drive.

“It’s a worthwhile cause,” Larson said. “We are like one big family. If it weren’t for the community and volunteers, we couldn’t do what we do.”

Over the years, several local businesses such as Windermere Real Estate, Super 1 Foods, SYSCO deliveries and Century Publishing have joined in to help the food bank provide for the needy.

“It came to our attention about two years ago that they were in dire need of keeping their doors open,” said Mike Urquhart, vice president of operations for the Post Falls publishing company and chairman of the annual April fundraiser.

The food bank serves more than 30 percent of the community, Urquhart said, adding, “We are going to keep that going, and we are going to lead the charge.”

Amy Crooks and her family turned to Larson and her crew in March when Crooks’ husband lost his job as a fabricator. Since then, the Crookses and their three children have looked to the food bank for help with groceries and school supplies.

“We were always pretty lucky, but with baby No. 3 and my husband losing work, that put a strain on us,” Crooks said. “We have really relied on them (at the food bank). We couldn’t have survived without them.”

Meanwhile, Crooks’ husband has a new job as a truck driver.

With Post Falls’ population boom not expected to subside anytime soon, the food bank’s services will be a crucial component of the community’s well-being, Urquhart said.

“There is a need to keep the food bank open because the growth is expanding,” he said. “Every little bit we can contribute or help with makes a big difference. We’ve got to keep those shelves stocked.”