Volunteers came from near and far Saturday to lend hands and wheels to collect donations for Vancouver’s 31st annual Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive.
People lined up at the U.S. Post Office in the Bagley Downs neighborhood to get pick-up routes, post office vests and car decals before hitting the streets to grab food donations across the city.
Organizer Don Young was accompanied for the food drive by his niece and sister-in-law, both from Minnesota. His goal each year is to donate 100,000 pounds of food to the Clark County Food Bank.
Still, he said anything helps refill the shelves at the food bank in a season when the organization really needs it.
“Even if we can get, say, 30,000 pounds out of it, that still will feed quite a few people — I think it still has a good impact,” Young said. “And because it’s this time of the year when kids are starting to get out of school, it’s a good time to do it, to replenish the food bank, because it’s depleting. They’ve been depleting themselves throughout the year after Walk & Knock and those kinds of people do their food drives during the holidays.”
Cheryl Rienecker said that over the several years she and her husband, Russ Rienecker, have volunteered for the food bank, she’s seen how much good donations do for the community.
“There’s just such a need these days,” Cheryl Rienecker said. “It’s very sad to me, and I’m very lucky in my life, so it makes sense to me to do what I can.”
Tim Hensley, inventory specialist at the food bank, said the Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive makes a big difference for the organization. Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, he said, the food bank has received about a third of the donations it usually does.
“This means a lot of pounds of food coming into the facility that we can get to the public quickly,” Hensley said.
Russ and Claudia Roseberry suited up in their pickup Saturday to volunteer for the food drive for the first time. Russ Roseberry said they’ve donated to the Stamp Out Hunger drive before, but they felt compelled to volunteer their time, knowing how much of a need there is in the community.
“We’s seen a lot of people who need food,” Russ Roseberry said. “We used to work in food distribution, and they come in with all kinds of needs.”
Brothers Nathanael and Matthias Bundy, 17 and 15 respectively, helped unload volunteers’ vehicles and pack donations into food bank boxes. With a father who works for the post office, the brothers have volunteered before, they said, which goes toward their community service hours for school.
“Plus, feeding hungry kids, how could you say no?” Nathanael said.
