Hilltop has a new food bank. It will serve those in need and bring life to an empty space
There’s a need, and there was an opportunity. According to Hilltop Action Coalition board president Brendan Nelson, those are two things his community has had plenty of practicing identifying and responding to.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic — and even before it — Nelson had seen firsthand just how many of his neighbors were struggling. With his family, Nelson has made a habit of visiting the homeless encampments that have come to dot the area in recent years, distributing food and other supplies. Even among the housed, he knows that hunger is around every corner.
“I just feel like people need to be fed, regardless of their situation,” Nelson explained this week.
At the same time, Nelson said, he looked around his neighborhood and saw what he described as “empty spaces” begging to be used. One such location was the storefront that’s typically home to the Coffee Buzz cafe, inside Community Health Care’s Hilltop Regional Health Center at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Earnest S. Brazil Street. Prior to the pandemic, Goodwill used the facility to provide job training to future baristas. When preventing the spread of the virus temporarily shut the program down, the doors locked and the windows went dark.
For Nelson and other Hilltop Action Coalition members, it sparked an idea.
As long as the cafe was dormant, why not use it as a hub for food distribution in an area that’s literally hungry for it?
Last week, Hilltop Fed was born.
“We’re excited,” Nelson said of the upstart endeavor, which is a partnership between Community Healthcare — which owns the space — and the Hilltop Action Coalition.
Nelson said Hilltop Fed will be open Monday, Wednesday and Friday, from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. Currently, the program is distributing food donations from the community and churches, as well as fresh fruits and produce provided by the Food is Free Tacoma project. According to Audria Cordova-Kennedy, Community Health Care’s assistant director of clinical operations, the plan is to continue until Goodwill is able to resume activity at Coffee Buzz, which is tentatively scheduled for next summer.
As The News Tribune previously reported, Food is Free has recently been looking for new locations on Hilltop. Nelson said he read about the situation in the newspaper and reached out to David and Ursula Thompson, who run the Food is Free project in Tacoma and jumped at the idea.
“One of the great things about the Hilltop Community is that, once folks hear about something, they immediately want to step up and support it, so that’s been really awesome,” Nelson said of the relationships that have been quickly forged.
“We consider ourselves a connector. Food is Free needed a space, and we were like, ‘Hey, we have the ability to help through our connection with Community Healthcare,” Nelson said. “That’s the beauty of this: being able to create a space where services may not have been offered before.”
According to David Thompson, the opportunity will allow Food is Free to “establish itself more on Hilltop, and work with the community more.”
“I think it’s going to give a whole new option to people up here in Hilltop to come get fresh food,” Thompson said.
On Wednesday, Nelson said the Hilltop Action Coalition has big plans for what the program can become. In addition to serving as a three-day-a-week food resource for anyone who needs it — including those experiencing homelessness and patients visiting Community Health Care’s clinics — he hopes to eventually provide hot meals and various other support services. While he knows there are other food banks in Tacoma, he hopes Hilltop Fed can help meet the specific needs of his neighbors.
In its first week of operation, the project served roughly 30 people, Nelson said.
He expects that to be just the start.
“I think that’s what makes Hilltop great. When we see a need, we jump in and try to meet it.”
This story was originally published October 1, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
