Washington’s food banks are stretched thin - Rev. Bolerjack
A few days ago, I looked in a bag of food packed at the Tukwila Pantry, the food bank hosted by our church. There was a jar of chili sauce, two onions, and some coffee creamer.
How do you make a meal out of that?
And yet that’s what we’re expecting the families who rely on food banks to do.
This situation will only get worse with impending cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. That’s the federal program to help low-income people get groceries. The law known as H.R. 1, marketed as the Big Beautiful Bill, will take food off the tables of an estimated 170,000 children, veterans and families here in Washington.
H.R. 1 will shift more costs of running the program to states, make work requirements stricter, eliminate an education program that helps people make healthy choices about diet and exercise, along with other moves that shave this safety net to the lowest funding level in its 50-year history.
Those cuts are set to take place in 2026. But the government shutdown is creating uncertainty for SNAP now. Benefits were set to run out Nov. 1. Following court rulings last week, it now appears that the federal government could release at least a portion of the money needed to keep paying for the program, though details remain unclear.
Gov. Bob Ferguson has pledged $2.2 million a week in state funding to food banks to help with disruptions to SNAP. To the more than 900,000 families in Washington who use SNAP, that will mean they can still shop for groceries and make meals. Yet this is only a temporary fix for a larger problem.
My congregation at Riverton Park Church in Tukwila has operated a food bank for more than 25 years to make sure our neighbors have enough to eat. We’ve welcomed them in — families, singles, housed and unhoused, employed and unemployed — to pick up bread, meat, dairy, fresh produce, canned foods and staples like rice and potatoes.
In the past, we’ve been able to provide up to 50 pounds of food per customer, which is enough to prepare several well-rounded, nutritious meals. Even during the pandemic, we were able to provide food for our community. These days, we only have enough for customers to come just once a week and take 15 pounds of food. It’s deeply disappointing to turn our neighbors away, knowing they will not have enough to make a meal.
Over the years, state and federal government investments in food and nutrition programs haven’t kept pace with the dire need. Our suppliers, like Northwest Harvest and Food Lifeline, can’t deliver as much food to pantries like ours, and in turn, we can’t pass it on to those in need. The result: more people going hungry.
We know that more bad news is coming. To pay for tax cuts to the wealthy, Trump’s Congress is also slashing Medicaid. As many as 320,000 people in our state will lose access to health care because of it, according to state estimates.
I’m already hearing of situations where our clients can’t afford care, and worry these will only become more frequent when the Medicaid changes kick in. Recently, a client went to the doctor because she had a stomachache. She was given a prescription, but couldn’t afford to have it filled. Tragically, she was found dead a week later. She was just 35 years old.
Our neighbors need and deserve better.
No matter where they come from or what they look like, I’m called as a minister to serve these people. Together with my congregation and others from the larger community, we do our best to live the scripture by feeding, clothing, and housing our neighbors.
I call on our elected leaders to uphold these sacred values. In a country and state with so many resources, we should not let our neighbors go hungry, live outside, or suffer without health care. To make sure everyone in our community has what they need, legislators need to look at additional sources of revenue, like raising taxes on the wealthy.
As they write the next budget, our state legislators should include enough for food banks, emergency and long-term housing, and hospitals and clinics. There are real people in Tukwila and every community in every corner of Washington whose lives literally depend on it.
Originally published in the Washington State Standard Nov 4 2025