This year, Walk & Knock board member Tom Knappenberger summoned the courage to subtitle the countywide, volunteer-driven charitable event as the nation’s largest local food drive.
He’s heard that fact directly from executive director Alan Hamilton of the Clark County Food Bank, who attends nationwide food banking conferences and keeps hearing about food drives elsewhere that rustle up amounts like 30,000 or 40,000 pounds, Knappenberger said.
For years now, Walk & Knock’s collections have hovered upwards of 250,000 pounds. If anybody can beat that, Knappenberger said, they should bring it on. What would be better for the charitable bottom line than a friendly food drive competition?
Walk & Knock started out as an informal effort of local Lions Clubs in the early 1980s, but by 1985 it had a name and a structure behind it. Thirty-plus years later, it still works pretty much the same way: Paper donation bags are distributed by this newspaper in the week leading up to the first Saturday in December. On that day, thousands of volunteers fan out across the county to collect donations and haul them back to central drop-off sites. More volunteers sort all the incoming donations, and volunteer tractor-trailer drivers deliver the final loads to the Clark County Food Bank — which will store and redistribute it all to Clark County’s many satellite food pantries in the weeks and months to come.
Meanwhile, the Clark County Amateur Radio Club pitches in with coordinated communications. If volunteers are finished in this sector and needed in that one, or if a collection point is running out of cardboard boxes, the radio network spreads the word immediately.
But organizers are keeping up with changing times too, they said. Amateur radio operator Tim McLaren noted that everybody’s got a cell phone these days — so the radio network isn’t quite as key as it used to be. And, sadly, Knappenberger noted that not everybody subscribes to the newspaper anymore, so big bunches of donation bags now get distributed by hand as well as by newspaper delivery.
Social media plays an increasing role in spreading the word every year, he added. “We’re on Facebook and Instagram and every social media platform you can think of,” Knappenberger said. “That’s the way you reach out to people anymore.”
(It’ll be at least a few days before there’s a final tally of this year’s collections, Knappenberger said — just like our recent elections.)
Human touch
Still, there’s always room for the human touch. At the Salmon Creek Chuck’s Produce, dozens of volunteers directed traffic, unloaded donation bags from sedans and pickups and SUVs, deposited them in shopping carts, and lined those carts up behind a waiting semi-truck. More volunteers were inside the truck, lifting everything up and sorting it into cardboard crates.
“It’s such a cool community event,” he said. “It started locally and it’s been growing all these years. The volunteers are the kind of wonderful, hardworking people who make the world go round.”
How many volunteers in all? Around 3,500 this year, Knappenberger said — from retirees to high school students to Cub Scouts.
“I’m here to sort. I just saw it in the newspaper,” said volunteer Betty Brewster, who lives nearby. “I make donations to places overseas, but I’m really concerned for the homeless and hungry right here. I’m retired and glad to help out.”
“It’s really fun opening up the bags and seeing what’s there,” said volunteer Kathy Schmitt, a senior at Skyview High School. “Like, you open it up and there’s jars of baby food and you know that’s expensive. It’s nice that somebody donated that.”
Meanwhile, Skyview juniors Ella Palandrani and Cameryn Rasmussen cheerfully directed incoming traffic away from one of Chuck’s parking lot entrances and toward another. To prevent parking lot chaos, traffic was moved through the lot in a controlled one-way stream.
“We’re just dancing with signs and sending people over there,” said Palandrani. “People have been really nice. One lady asked to give a cash donation.”
“It’s a nice thing to do, rather than just get up and watch TV,” said Rasmussen. This year was extra nice, she added, because the weather was reasonably clear. Last year when she did this, she said, hard rain was pouring down.
Knappenberger agreed, recalling Walk & Knock day 2017: “I couldn’t have been more wet if I jumped into a pool of water.”
Knock and ask
Another new development on the Walk & Knock scene is volunteer collection crews crossing paths with supermarket deliveries. At least once in her area, volunteer leader Amanda Anderson said, somebody’s home food delivery from Safeway almost got scooped up and taken away again as a charitable donation. But the mistake was averted at the last moment, she said.
Despite all the advance outreach, Knappenberger said, not everyone gets the Walk & Knock message. If there’s no donation waiting outside someone’s door, volunteers are instructed to do just what the name of the event says: walk up and knock — and ask, politely, if the occupant would like to contribute.
“It’s not usually a tough sell,” Knappenberger said. If people aren’t interested, they don’t answer the door. If they do, they usually scrounge around and come up with something.
They probably feel the way he does, he said: “I like food. What else can I say? Why does the greatest nation on Earth have so much need?”
Scott Hewitt: 360-735-4525; scott.hewitt@columbian.com; twitter.com/_scotthewitt
