Jacob Dimond / jake@yelmonline.com
As SNAP benefits continue to be suspended nationwide due to the government shutdown, many local residents are looking to local resources like Yelm Community Services.
The Yelm Community Services food bank is open every Thursday morning from 9:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. at 624 Crystal Springs Rd NW. This specific location is the oldest food bank in Thurston County, according to Cindy Cecil, Yelm Community Services executive director. It opened its doors in 1971.
Cecil told the Nisqually Valley News on Monday, Nov. 10, that she hasn’t seen this high of volume of community members attending the food bank since the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This is a pretty crazy time because of the uncertainty of everything that’s happening,” Cecil said. “We’ve been serving several families, upwards of 200 per week — especially since all of this stuff with SNAP started happening. People are very fearful, and understandably so. When someone’s threatening your income on that point of things, it’s hard to know what to do. People are truly flocking to our food bank to get the food that they can get.”
Though times are rough for many residents within the Nisqually Valley, Cecil noted that community support towards Yelm Community Services has been tremendous in recent weeks. She believes there’s a general understanding amongst community members of how important it is to have food for your families.
“People are being so kind and helpful. Even when I go uptown, people are coming up and giving us checks, saying they want to do their part and help out. Everybody goes through rough spots in their lives, planned or not planned,” Cecil said. “You’ve just got to have food on the table. The community has been there and done that, and they’ve been kindly bringing in food without solicitation or requests on our part. They’re hearing about it on the news, and they’ve seen that the line has been very long these last three weeks.”
According to Cecil, the organization has been serving 50-55 additional families each week since news about SNAP support swept headlines nationwide. She described recent weeks at Yelm Community Services as nerve-wracking.
“It’s been a stretch for us,” Cecil said. “Of course we want to step up to the plate and offer food. We’re very grateful about the Governor (Bob Ferguson) deciding to support the food banks with emergency funding. That announcement was made, but that food has to be purchased and delivered to the food bank. We’re supposed to be getting our first shipment this week, but we don’t know when. There’s so much uncertainty. We don’t know what we’re going to get or how much we’re going to get. All we know is we have volunteers that are here to put boxes together with whatever it is we do get.”
For any community member looking to assist Cecil and Yelm Community Services, contact the organization at 360-458-7000. Cecil noted that anything the community can do to assist the agency would be “greatly appreciated.”
“We need food, obviously, of all kinds, but especially shelf-stable foods of all kinds. Donations are greatly appreciated,” Cecil said. “Some people are fearful about making monetary contributions, but the fact is, we get our food either free or greatly reduced to where the only cost we incur is the transportation fee to pick it up. It’s extremely rare for us to buy anything at retail price, and we appreciate contributions of food, but contributions of cash would purchase five-times the amount of food that you’d pay for in the store.”
