It’s the food bank that fills in the gaps for families falling into or climbing out of homelessness.
And now Camp Fire Building Bridges Food Bank is homeless.
It operated out of the Camp Fire Boys & Girls headquarters at 3555 E. McKinley Ave. for 13 years.
It was a congenial partnership. Camp Fire provided a 12-by-12-foot room, paid the power bill for two freezers and two commercial refrigerators, and encouraged its young members to hold food drives.
Food bank volunteer Willie Carson kept the books and worked on funding, most of which comes from a federal grant of about $2,000 funneled through FISH Food Banks. Emergency Food Network sends a delivery of goods every week, and Northwest Harvest sends one each month.
Volunteers Sharon and John Reynolds stocked the shelves, filled food boxes and delivered them to about 20 families and singles a month.
“If someone is living in a tent and we hear about it, we haul food to them,” Sharon Reynolds said. “We have delivered food to a family living in a car.”
Colleen Cline, a counselor at First Creek Middle School, delivered food to hungry families identified through the Tacoma School District.
Very occasionally a family would make an appointment to “shop” the modest inventory.
Mary Grant, Camp Fire’s outreach worker serving homeless and at-risk teens, kept the trunk of her sedan stocked with food for them.
Then the economy tanked and took a big chunk of Camp Fire’s donations with it.
Camp Fire had already done all the right things: Executive Director Kathy Unruh had let attrition pare the staff. She thought beyond the mints, and ran innovative fundraisers. She has lasered in on Camp Fire’s mission of serving kids through clubs, camps and outreach.
The 5,000-square-foot building Camp Fire bought for $310,000 was more than they needed. She contacted a Realtor, and within a week, a dentist was measuring the place. He’ll open a clinic that provides care on a sliding fee scale. Unruh said Camp Fire will reap $600,000 from the sale.
That’s a win almost all the way around. McKinley Hill will get a valuable health resource. Camp Fire, which has moved to a century-old house near Holy Rosary Church, will get a cash infusion.
But the plan to keep the food bank operating out of the house’s garage fell through.
“We made up boxes before we moved out of the room,” Sharon Reynolds said. “The food bank was in our pickup truck for two weeks. We just gave away the last two boxes yesterday.
They set up the shelves in Carson’s garage. They put the refrigerators and a freezer in his yard, where they are plugged in and running under a tarp. One freezer died in the move.
So now they need a home and a freezer, said Sharon Reynolds.
For now, she and her volunteer corps of young relatives are stacking the allotments from EFN and Northwest Harvest in the shelves in Carson’s garage. But that, and the outdoor appliance corral, can’t go on.
Here’s what they need: A ground-floor room no smaller than 12 feet square with power outlets for at least two freezers and two refrigerators, and a willingness to pay the power bill. The site could be anywhere in Tacoma between Portland Avenue and South Tacoma Way.
One church contacted them, Carson said, but in return for a room, it wanted half their funding, a promise to supply the church’s meal program and give food to church members. It also wanted food bank volunteers to join the congregation.
That has soured Reynolds on the idea of moving in with a church or an agency that would use the food. They tried it once, and most of the goods went home with people from the other agency.
“I threw a hell of a fit,” Reynolds said. “I got us kicked out of there. That got us into Camp Fire.”
To Unruh’s knowledge, Reynolds hasn’t pitched a fit since, at least regarding the food bank. She is, Unruh said, a congenial and dedicated volunteer worker.
And an optimistic one.
She’s pretty sure that somewhere, in a community center, a school, park or city building, even a steady business, there’s a spare room with a higher calling.
If you know where that room is, call Reynolds at 253-475-1354. Ditto if you have a spare freezer.
Three damp and chilly appliances will thank you. And Camp Fire will throw in some mints.
Kathleen Merryman: 253-597-8677
kathleen.merryman@thenewstribune.com
