‘A wonderful thing’: How passions merged to feed hungry kids in Spokane through Bite2Go

Seventeen years ago, a social worker in Mead reached out to a youth pastor and his wife about a problem that needed attention.

Debbie Wiechert, the social worker at Meadow Ridge Elementary School, feared a couple dozen of her students were going hungry on weekends . So she spoke with Chris and Brenna Sloan, who had three children attending the school at 15601 N. Freya St.

At the time, Chris Sloan was a youth pastor at Timberview Church. Wiechert told them that her mother-in-law relayed information about a program in Kansas that provided food for students who didn’t have enough to eat at their homes on weekends.

“She’s explaining all of this, and I’m like, ‘OK. Why are you telling us?’ ” Chris Sloan said. “She said, ‘I want to start this program. But I don’t have the bandwidth. Would you be willing to engage your church to get involved?’ ”

He thought there weren’t that many kids going hungry on the weekends

“We scoffed. Are you kidding me? We live in Mead.”

“She said, ‘No. I can tell you, without revealing any names, but I guarantee there are kids where I’m very concerned,’ ” Chris Sloan recalled.

The couple agreed to try.

“Our heart is for helping kids, especially kids who are vulnerable like this,” Chris Sloan said.

And so began the successful program Bite2Go, which started with caring adults discreetly slipping cans of Vienna sausages into cinch sacks for 22 children. It has now grown into an important food pipeline in which churches and businesses have adopted 230 schools across the Inland Northwest, from North Idaho to Chelan. It provides weekend meals to more than 12,000 students of all ages.

But the lifeblood of the program comes from donations, and with recent cuts to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and the loss of subsidies for insurance costs through the Affordable Care Act, more Spokane students will likely need help.

Bite2Go is operated by a nonprofit founded by the Sloans called At the Core, which contracts with the regional food bank Second Harvest.

Second Harvest recently started a campaign with Rosauers Supermarkets that is tied to an anonymous donor.

The organization has raised more than $18,000 for Bite2Go, but the donor will match if others pledge enough to reach $25,000. That campaign ends on Sunday, said Steve Durham, vice president of philanthropy at Second Harvest.

“If a Rosauers customer agrees to pay $5, that equates to a Bite2Go food bag,” Durham said. “Every $5 is going to help one student for a weekend. When they are shopping at Rosauers or Super 1 or Huckleberry’s, they can elect to make a donation to the program.”

Durham noted that while Bite2Go already provides assistance to thousands of kids, officials fear more will need help.

“We have parents making choices between paying the utilities and food,” he said. “That has also been driving much greater demand on the program.”

Second act

Tom Stevenson, 73, retired in 2010 after 37 years at Spokane accounting firm Moss Adams.

Not ready to spend his days on a golf course, Stevenson began volunteering and became chairman of the board for United Way of Spokane County.

Then in 2013, Stevenson took a trip to Amarillo, Texas, to look at a poverty program there.

“They farmed me out to a guy doing SnackPacks for kids. It was a weekend food program. I was really touched by it and was impressed,” Stevenson said.

The South Hill resident returned to Spokane and quickly learned through his sources that Chris and Brenna Sloan had already started a similar program for Mead students.

“All these years driving down Grand (Boulevard), if you asked me if there were kids who are hungry in Spokane, I would have said, ‘No,’ ” Stevenson said. “And yet, one in six children in Spokane County are hungry on weekends or are food insecure, according to the state of Washington. That’s important to me.”

Chris Sloan said Stevenson, who he met in the summer of 2013, brought the connections and acumen needed for the effort to take off.

“We had no idea who Tom was,” Sloan said. “I had no idea the influence he had in the nonprofit sector.”

Stevenson set up a meeting between the Sloans and Second Harvest CEO Jason Clark.

“It’s a partnership that has lasted 12 years with Second Harvest,” Sloan said. “Tom is a long-tenured business leader. He joined as president of At the Core and he helped us develop it as a nonprofit. He accelerated the model we created.”

Stevenson said the business part came easy for him.

“As managing partner of Moss Adams, several organizations wanted us to contribute funds, and we did,” he said. “What I love about this is that businesses and churches adopt a school.”

Those sponsors then provide volunteers who prepare food packages and deliver them each week to whatever school they choose.

“Some do more, like mentoring and reading and clothes drives,” Stevenson said. “They wrap their arms around the school and do whatever they need. That’s a wonderful thing.”

At the Core and Bite2Go “could have been just another nonprofit in Spokane trying to grab money,” he continued. “Instead, we have over 200 partners who have adopted a school and are feeding students that a teacher identifies as being hungry on the weekends.”

The program differs depending on the ages of students.

For instance, high school students get to pick the food items that are available. School officials take pains to organize food drops so that other students don’t know who gets assistance, he said.

While Stevenson brought the business contacts and professional background, Chris Sloan said Second Harvest brought the logistics needed to make the program work.

Second Harvest is able to purchase food in bulk, which gives them a discount, and has the warehouse space needed to support such a large program.

“They are a fabulous partner,” Stevenson said of Second Harvest. “They only buy brand-named, fresh-dated food that is kid friendly. They buy it by the truckload at wholesale with no markup.”

As the program and the coordination grew, Chris Sloan agreed in 2014 to join Second Harvest’s management team where he now coordinates Bite2Go.

“My wife, Brenna, and Tom Stevenson still lead At the Core,” he said. “It wasn’t a brand new idea. What we did was, we said, this is such a valuable resource and service that the church could do for school. It gave us the opportunity to build a bridge. We just want to love you and serve the most vulnerable.”

For Stevenson, it gave him a second life.

“I hang around with some retired people. Some are really bored. They don’t feel productive,” he said. “This is so fulfilling. I’m so blessed to do what I’m doing.”

The role keeps Stevenson in touch with his previous contacts, and he also gets to meet new business and church leaders as part of the effort.

“Those businesses and churches are making a huge impact by helping kids who are hungry on the weekend,” he said. “I’m having the time of my life.”