Our Solutions

Our Solutions to the Problem of Hunger

Feeding Washington unites the efforts to end hunger in our state. Here are the ways we are addressing hunger:

Supporting Local Communities

We support community-level hunger solvers like regional food banks and local food pantries. Feeding Washington works to bridge the gap from local efforts to statewide solutions to end hunger. Together with our local partners, we help identify and implement ways to build capacity within the food bank system and ease the burden on small organizations. One week we might be helping a rural food bank in Eastern Washington find funding for a larger refrigeration system and the next we might be implementing new client intake software for a group of King County food pantries.

Key program areas:

Building capacity of regional food banks that redistribute food to community-level food pantries
Supplying free client intake and volunteer management software and providing technical assistance to local organizations in the hunger relief network
Identifying gaps in the system and leveraging statewide resources to support all levels of the food bank, food pantry and meal program network
Researching and sharing best practices among food banks, pantries and meal programs

A Voice for Hunger Relief

Feeding Washington unites organizations and champions of hunger relief to address statewide hunger. We coordinate advocacy efforts for federal, state and regional policies and resources that strengthen food access and address poverty in our state. The causes of hunger are complex and include geographical, racial and social inequities that we believe must be addressed in unison. We bring together nonprofit partners, government agencies and elected officials to challenge systemic inequities and social injustice and develop long-term, sustainable strategies to ensure that everybody has enough food to eat. We also raise awareness across Washington about how hunger affects our communities by telling the stories of people who experience it.

Key program areas:

Coordinating statewide advocacy efforts to unite partners in support of hunger relief solutions
Public education and hunger awareness to tell the stories of people facing hunger and share the scope of food insecurity in our state

Scaling Up Access to Nutritious Food

Feeding Washington provides a high-level approach for how to get the most nutritious food to people facing hunger across the state. Our region’s robust produce cooperative—known as Feeding the Northwest—sources and distributes an incredibly high volume of fresh, nutritious produce on behalf of food banks, pantries and meal programs in our state. In partnership with food banks in Oregon and Idaho, this cooperative sources fruits and vegetables from Pacific Northwest farms and distributes millions of pounds of produce in Washington state as well as other areas in need across the country each year.

Key program areas:

Sourcing and distributing nutritious produce from Pacific Northwest farms through the Feeding the Northwest produce cooperative
Supporting our members’ COVID-19 response and the high demand for food assistance