Helping the hungry

Food Lifeline is working to feed hungry people. That's the motto it's printed on all its fliers, and that's definitely the impression one gets when walking into the impressive 25,000-square foot warehouse in Shoreline.

Boxes upon boxes of canned goods and produce are neatly stacked and sorted by hand by volunteers specially trained to tell food that's still good apart from food that might have gone bad.

"Most of the stuff you see in here won't be here in two days," said Victoria Watson, marketing coordinator for Food Lifeline.

The extremely high turnover rate allows Food Lifeline to move more than a million pounds of fresh and canned food in and out of its warehouse every month. The fleet of trucks the organization owns delivers the food to about 250 homeless shelters, soup kitchens and other emergency programs in 17 counties in Western Washington, which in turn distribute the food to those who need it the most. About 400,000 hungry people benefit from the work of Food Lifeline every year.

Most of the food that comes through the Food Lifeline warehouse is received from local industry donors, or through the Second Harvest National Food Bank Network, which receives donations from food-industry donors across the nation. Administrative costs are kept as low as possible.

"About 95 cents out of every dollar we receive goes directly to collecting and distributing food," said Watson. This enables Food Lifeline to distribute six meals for every donated dollar it receives.

Food Lifeline also runs two local programs, Seattle's Table and Produce for the People, which pick up surplus prepared food and unsold fresh produce and deliver it to clients on the very same day. According to Watson, Food Lifeline is the only food-distribution agency in the nation to implement such programs, and both have been very successful.

"These programs were developed to rescue the food," said Amanda Schwartz, the program coordinator for both Seattle's Table and Produce for the People. Last year, the two programs saved and redistributed more than 2.5 million pounds of perfectly edible food, out of an estimated 13.8 billion pounds of food that is thrown away each year.

The two same-day programs are the key areas where the UW contributes to Food Lifeline. Every month, at least 2,000 pounds of surplus food is recovered from various locations on campus and redistributed to hot-lunch programs in the Seattle area.

The food collected through Seattle's Table comes from the dormitory kitchens, as well as places like Balmer Cafe, the Burke Museum Cafe and the Nordstrom Tennis Center. Most of the time, it is the on-site kitchen or operations managers that Food Lifeline deals with, and not UW's Housing and Food Services itself.

According to Watson, there are probably liability issues that deter more official donations from being made, although she adds that donors are protected from having to assume responsibility for the food they donate under the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act of 1996.

Combined with various food drives and donations from individuals and groups, all these efforts brought in about 18.4 million pounds of food in 2000, but the total is still a far cry from the 100 million pounds of food a year needed to feed the hungry in Western Washington every year. This year, Food Lifeline hopes to distribute about 20 million pounds of food, and continues to increase awareness of its program and the problem of hunger in Western Washington.