Free Food

FISH gives away food five days a week

 

  • FISH partners with 18 churches in Longview and Kelso to give away food five days a week. On an average day, 30 households totaling about 100 people get food.
  • All churches abide by the same nutritious, well-balanced menu of at least 14 items designed to give people of various household sizes enough food to last three full days.
  • FISH pays for the meat, eggs, milk, peanut butter and bread. Churches buy food too. Regional food banks, Safeway’s food rescue program, and local donations round out sources of food.
  • People needing food call the FISH help line in the morning. A volunteer records the number of adults and children in each household and emails lists to church volunteers. They load boxes with enough food to give all occupants enough food for nine meals.
  • Families may get food up to four times a month. Those who exceed the limit may not get food the following month. Afterwards, they are back in our good graces.
  • We know the program is needed in our community because we tally the number of people who get food — an annual average of 25,500.
  • Our statistics consistently show that about 40% of recipients are children.

Take a 5 minute tour of FISH’s food program. (below)

        Volunteers provide more than food

A homeless teenager who waked miles to a church for food. A newly widowed mother of four. A guy on a bike who couldn’t possibly haul away his bags of food. A bus rider who needed a cane to walk.

FISH church volunteers routinely encounter people who need special care, even it’s just an empathetic listener. Here are a few stories from those volunteers.

A hungry, homeless teenager walked over six miles to reach our church. He said he had nothing except the clothes he was wearing and his cell phone. He had been staying in the woods. We gave him food that didn’t need cooking — pull-tab canned goods, fruit cups, crackers, peanut butter, lots of protein bars, beef jerky, dried fruit, drinks, and some deli sandwiches and salads to eat ASAP. We also gave him plastic utensils and napkins. He told us he had a job in interview in Longview in a couple of hours. After he ate, we wished him the best. He left with a smile.

Early on in the pandemic, a phone volunteer asked a caller if she had received food in 2020. She said “no” but went on to say it had been several years since she had received help from FISH. She had been working and was able to support her family. Then the pandemic hit. It was hard to ask FISH for help again, but she was glad FISH was still here.

We served a mom with four young children who had lost her husband a few weeks before. She had virtually no income yet and was fearful of losing housing.

She cried when she saw the amount of food we were able to give her.

A couple of the kids began crying when they saw Mom crying. The other two children became very excited when they spotted a cake on the top of one of the food bags.

Today a guy arrived at our church on a bike with a backpack. There was no way he could transport all the food we were gave him. I suggested he let me deliver it to his home. This very stoic man nearly burst into tears and thanked me.

A man arrived via city bus. He had a backpack and two reusable cloth bags to carry everything. He needed a cane to ambulate. It was obvious he could not carry a half-dozen bags of groceries home on the bus. One church volunteer said he would take the man and his food home to South Kelso.

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