24 Little BIG Hours

What if everybody got together on one day and did something special?

Imagine the impact, the power, the excitement of everyone coming together to accomplish good things?

That’s the idea of GiveBIG! It’s one whole day where we can GiveBig, LiveBIG, ChangeBIG, HelpBIG! 

GiveBIG runs Wednesday, May 2 from midnight to midnight. All donations will be partially matched through The Seattle Foundation. It’s not a dollar for dollar match, but it’ll add a lot to what’s donated because there is half a million dollars in the matching fund!

Last year was the first year for GiveBIG and our community came through with flying colors, giving more than $3 million dollars in a single day! That’s amazing! That’s true impact and hundreds of thousands of people were helped by this.

So mark your calendars: May 2. Donate by going to Northwest Harvest on The Seattle Foundation website.

Imagine all the good we can do.

" Even the Diabetics and Dialysis Folks Need You!"

We had a very interesting visitor here today, Beth, a registered dietician who works at the Northwest Kidney Center. She is working with people who receive dialysis. In addition, many are diabetics. I was surprised to learn how stringent their diets can be, high on protein and low on potassium. Many are also on very low incomes. Beth came to see first hand what we have to offer folks, with the hope that we might be a resource for her patients. I think she was pleasantly surprised to find we provide many foods her patients can use. It was a little case of education on both sides. Here take a look:

I'm glad Beth took the time to come pay us a visit. If you deal with people who require certain types of food, don't be afraid to come for a visit or give us a call.

"Happy Easter Everyone!!"

Whoa...it's been awhile since I've seen the excitment and big smiles we're seeing at the food bank today. For the first time in years we have eggs to offer for the Easter holiday. Since they are usually too expensive to purchase and put all over the state I got a phone call from our friends at Wilcox Farms asking how we would like to have 108,000 eggs to hand out for Easter. I was ecstatic and couldn't thank them enough. I wasn't the only one thrilled, here take a look:

Our volunteers were pretty excited to be able to hand out such great eggs too!

It turns out the generousity isn't only to Northwest Harvest and the State of Washington. In partnership with the United Egg Producers America's egg farmers are donating neearly 10 million eggs nationally and since 2008 they have donated 60 million fresh eggs. A truly generous gift that we and those we serve feel great gratitude for. Thank you Wilcox!

Getting Ready for the Mobile Tweet Up!

The KIRO Family Connection Mobile Tweet Up with Jenni Hogan is only one day away! For those of you who are unsure what a Mobile Tweet Up is, here is Jenni talking with Matthew Campbell about how the Mobile Tweet Up came to exist.

Tomorrow’s Mobile Tweet Up will start at 10am and last until 1pm. Check out Jenni Hogan's blog to find out when and where she plans to be throughout the Mobile Tweet Up. Don't forgot to follow the Mobile Tweet Up on Twitter #mobiletweetup for live updates.

While the Mobile Tweet Up will last for three hours, Baby Days continues through April 5^th. You can take donations of baby items (diapers, wipes, baby food, and formula) to any of the many drop-off locations or text “BABY7” to 85944 to make a $10 donation.

Boeing "Food and Essentials"

We recently had some familiar faces volunteering down in Kent. Boeing volunteers spent Leap Day leaping into their annual "Food and Essentials Drive." Throughout the month of March, Boeing employees will collect non-perishable food and other essential items for Northwest Harvest. Boeing volunteers are no strangers to our warehouse and they are always energized and motivated to get to work.


On a recent Wednesday evening the volunteers were busy repacking 50 pound bags of rice into one-pound, family-friendly sized bags. Why is this so helpful? Well, most food banks can't manage 50-lb bags of food. They are not only difficult to handle but they are hard to store, and eventually someone needs to repack that big bag into something smaller for distribution. This is where Northwest Harvest volunteers can really help out.

The one-pound bags that Boeing volunteers repacked were then put into boxes, weighed and stacked on a pallet ready to go out to one of our over 325 partner programs. The speed and efficiency with which the volunteers bagged and boxed the rice was amazing to watch. The volunteers never seemed to miss a beat and looked like they were having a great time. As you can see below, there was a lot going on!

"You can text, you can tweet, you can shop..."

KIRO 7 Family Connection Baby Days is in full swing and we’re getting pretty excited about the mobile tweetup that’s happening March 29. When Matthew Campbell sat down with Jenni Hogan, KIRO 7's Traffic Anchor, at the beginning of the drive they talked about all the easy ways that you can donate to Baby Days. Here’s what they had to say:

There’s another great new way to donate. The free app Pirq is teaming up with Jenni Hogan for another great way to help support KIRO 7 Family Connection Baby Days. When you download this cool app and use the code "JENNI," Pirq will make a $2 donation to Baby Days. Once you have the app you can find great deals at restaurants near you.


Baby Days will continue through April 5. For a list of Baby Days drop-off locations visit KIRO 7 FamilyConnection or the Northwest Harvest Events Page.

"$5 a Gallon?! Gimme a Break!!"

Every time the price of fuel jumps, it affects our ability to put food on the table of those in need - particularly fresh food. Last week we had a film crew from KING 5 come to the food bank and ask me how we're managing. I told them it's having a huge impact, as this time of year it's already challenging enough to find fresh fruit and vegetables in Washington. So I've been going all over the country trying to secure new sources of produce. For instance, in the past two weeks I've brought oranges, grapefruit, cabbage, and lettuce in from California. In addition, we purchased carrots, squash, zucchini, bell peppers and cucumbers from Arizona. Fresh produce is key to fighting hunger and finding it is critical to our mission.

As you can imagine, every time the price of fuel goes up (which is happening often these days) we have to take another look at whether we have the resources to continue to offer this type of food around the state. To give you an idea of the cost, last month in a 3 week period the cost of a load from Arizona jumped from $3,100 to $3,900. Here's a peek at some of the food I'm talking about:

I've got my fingers crossed that the fuel prices don't get too out of hand.