Food Distribution

The Food Distribution project is the Council’s effort, in partnership with local food banks and soup kitchens, to combat hunger. USDA Surplus Commodities provide a variety of staples, including canned vegetables, dry goods, tuna, and peanut butter which are distributed to participating soup kitchens and food banks throughout Lewis, Mason, Thurston and Kitsap Counties. Food banks distribute packaged food to eligible individuals and households while the soup kitchens prepare congregate meals for the hungry. In our service area, the participating providers have increased to fifteen food banks and ten soup kitchens to accommodate the growing emergency nutritional needs within our communities. Commodities are distributed to these local providers through a central warehouse located in Shelton.

How can clients receive services?

This program is not available to individual clients through CAC. Clients need to contact the participating food bank and soup kitchens directly. Each participating food bank and soup kitchen has their own individual hours and days of operation. For locations and phone numbers of these organizations please click here.

The Emergency Food Assistance Program

The mission of the Emergency Food Assistance Program is to alleviate hunger in the state of Washington by providing funds, technical assistance, and information to community programs that deliver emergency food and services to hungry people.

For both the food bank and voucher program, the state sets a minimum requirement that clients simply declare they do not have the resources to feed themselves and their families. Food banks and tribes may have additional requirements such as the client must live in a certain geographic area or they may only access services so many times a year. However, providers may not discriminate against any class of people.

For more information about EFAP please click here. Locations are below.