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50 years of FISH in Vancouver

Saturday concert marks food pantry’s long relationship with city, those in need

By Scott Hewitt, Columbian staff writer
Published: September 19, 2019, 6:05am
8 Photos
Volunteer Ray Beresh of Vancouver, right, greets a client at FISH Westside Food Pantry of Vancouver. "The outpouring of love that goes back and forth, all the hugs and laughs that we share -- it really helps pick me up," Beresh said.
Volunteer Ray Beresh of Vancouver, right, greets a client at FISH Westside Food Pantry of Vancouver. "The outpouring of love that goes back and forth, all the hugs and laughs that we share -- it really helps pick me up," Beresh said. (Alisha Jucevic/The Columbian) Photo Gallery

Astronauts on the moon. A half-million hippies at Woodstock. War raging in Vietnam and protests raging at home. We keep being reminded that this is the 50th anniversary of 1969, one of the busiest, newsiest years in American history.

Something else happened in 1969, right here in Vancouver, that didn’t make national headlines but is worth celebrating: the launch of what became the largest, busiest food pantry in town.

Started by local women and housed at first in kitchens and garages, FISH Westside Food Pantry of Vancouver now has two paid employees and a 6,000-square-foot storefront and warehouse on downtown’s Harney Street.

It accounts for one-sixth of all the food that’s given away through the Clark County Food Bank system, said James Fitzgerald, FISH’s executive director.

If You Go

What: "We Get By With a Little Help from Our Friends."
Featuring: Jim Fischer & Friends with guitarist John Standefer and the Vancouver Master Chorale directed by Jana Hart, accompanied by Matthew Pollock.
When: 3 p.m. Saturday.
Where: First Presbyterian Church, 4300 Main St., Vancouver.
Admission: Donation of your choice.

 

By the Numbers

FISH of Vancouver (fiscal year 2018-2019)
Total households served: 21,117 (includes repeat visits from households returning weekly or monthly).
Individuals in those households: 55,468.
Households served weekly: 1,800.
Pounds of food distributed:1.3 million.
Volunteers: 150.

“Fifty years is an amazing milestone. I think of all the wise decisions made over many years by volunteers,” Fitzgerald said. “They created a solid organization that has been able to do so much for the community.”

“I love it here,” said client Liliya Paige, who brought her kids and her grandfather to FISH on a recent Wednesday morning. “There are fresh vegetables and fruits, and the people are awesome.”

To note those awesome people and their 50-year history, FISH has teamed up with renowned local pianist Jim Fischer, award-winning fingerstyle guitarist John Standefer and the 100-voice Vancouver Master Chorale for a Saturday afternoon concert titled “We Get By With a Little Help from Our Friends.”

The concert program will indulge the “light, fun and positive” music of 1969, said Jana Hart, the music director of the Vancouver Master Chorale.

“What a great year for music!” Hart wrote in an email.

The concert will feature songs from the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor and the musical “Hair,” as well as songs from different eras that show the same spirit, including “True Colors” by Cyndi Lauper and selections from the musicals “Hercules” and “The Greatest Showman.”

“The day of the FISH concert is International Peace Day,” Hart added, “so we are closing with the gospel song ‘Let There Be Peace On Earth.’ ”

All needs

According to a typewritten 1978 manuscript by one Clarice Setner, FISH — for Friends in Service to Humanity — of Vancouver began with Readers Digest devotee Barbara Golgert. Golgert was impressed to read about the spiritual satisfaction that FISH volunteers elsewhere in America were already reaping, and she and some friends launched the Vancouver chapter in her home on April 20, 1969.

“FISH started out trying to answer all needs,” Setner writes. Golgert’s phone “rang in the night, she drove to pick up strangers, she put them up for the remainder of the night, she gave them breakfast, she saw them on their way.”

Before long the all-volunteer project found a downtown home in the basement of St. Paul Lutheran Church downtown. It set up a reliable network of local donors and started providing across-the-board assistance of nearly every kind: food, cash, bus tickets, diapers, medicine, cheap hotel stays, trips to the doctor or hospital, even transportation for needy children to day camp at Lewisville Park.

FISH got back out of the bus-ticket and gas-voucher business in the mid-1970s, as inflation and an energy crisis hit America hard. And it got out of the cheap-accommodations business as real emergency housing programs grew.

“The money had to be used for food,” Golgert writes. “Food is our main concern, to feed the hungry our task.”

That’s not always what happened, though. A later FISH history, written by Bea Howell, notes typical charity troubles.

One local grocer pretending to make “donations” actually treated FISH like a free trash-disposal service. Wildly popular “K-rations” donated by the military turned out to contain cigarettes. A downtown cardroom offered free lunch coupons, but volunteers decided against “sending needy people … to gamble and drink away what little money they had,” Howell writes.

Some FISH clients would take their standard, pre-made sack of food across the street and dump what they didn’t want. That’s when FISH started asking clients what they did want, Howell writes.

In that sense, FISH was way ahead of the current industry trend toward making food-pantry visits resemble standard grocery store shopping — giving hungry clients the dignity to make their own choices.

Daily rounds

“We need some men to lift these boxes.”

That’s how George Kaufer got recruited into FISH by his wife, Joe Ann.

“I saw the need and I fell in love with the volunteers and the opportunity to lend a hand,” Kaufer said. “They are all givers, and it’s been my honor to help.”

Kaufer served as unpaid manager of the nonprofit organization from 2003 until 2015, when he guided FISH out of St. Paul’s cramped basement and into its own real estate.

FISH is grateful for St. Paul’s long commitment, Kaufer said, but there were always challenges. Because there was no room for storage in the church’s 1,500-square-foot basement, Kaufer used to make daily rounds to private garages and sheds where food was kept.

“We had places all over the city and we had to chase around to pick it up every day,” he said.

One day the pantry ran out of an important staple: peanut butter. Kaufer headed out the door to go buy some, when up drove a couple who asked, “What do you need?”

Peanut butter, Kaufer said, and the man handed him $100. But his companion said that wouldn’t go very far — so the man upped it to $1,000.

“That was one-tenth of our whole budget for the year,” Kaufer said, and he spent it all on peanut butter.

Outpouring

Kaufer resolved that FISH must move. He worked with then-state Rep. Jim Moeller to apply for a $1 million grant from the Legislature, and was amazed to get it, he said. FISH launched a capital campaign to match that amount and scored a sweet deal on the Harney Street building it wanted. It moved in debt-free, Kaufer said.

Because the building includes a separate commercial space, FISH even became a landlord, which bolsters the nonprofit’s financial stability, Fitzgerald said. (The current tenant is RIFF Creative, a marketing firm.)

The need for FISH has continued to soar since the agency reopened its doors in 2016 on Harney Street, Fitzgerald said. Hungry folks line up every weekday morning plus two Saturdays a month, he said.

“Employment has gotten better, but rent has gone up so much, anything people have gained, they’ve lost,” he said.

“People need food,” said volunteer Jacques Cotton, who’s been working here weekly for 10 years. “It’s a nice thing to do, and it’s needed. It’s a real crisis out there.”

Fresh fruits, root vegetables and other healthy foods were plentiful on the central grocery table at FISH on a recent morning. Bread shelves were full. Refrigerated meat and milk were available too, and a video screen provided basic pointers about nutrition and healthy eating.

The place was also packed with what seemed like a gross or two of donated Pop-Tarts — chocolate, strawberry and blueberry.

“You’re always going to have things like that,” Fitzgerald said. “There’s all sorts of stuff in the system. It comes in waves. We encourage our clients to eat wonderful, healthy foods and maybe enjoy one treat.”

Volunteer Ray Beresh of Vancouver, serving clients at one counter, turned out to be an incredible example of “givers” actually getting back more than they give out.

“I just lost my wife, last month, after 38 years,” Beresh said, struggling to maintain composure. “My friend introduced me to this, and I just love it. The outpouring of love that goes back and forth, all the hugs and laughs that we share — it really helps pick me up.”

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