SANDPOINT — In a season known for giving, the volunteer team at the Bonner Community Food Bank might be at the front of the pack.

Their compassion is rewarded in several ways. Sometimes it’s a simple “thank you” or a smile. Increasingly, however, it’s the chance to see those who have been helped in difficult times return to offer whatever help they can once they are out of the woods.

Embedded in the stories of need — and there are plenty of those in our county — is a study in human kindness.

“You see the giving and you see how it goes both ways,” said Debbie Love, who has been the food bank’s executive director since March. “For instance, there was a young lady whose family was really struggling. After she had been a client for about a year, she organized a church craft sale with all of the money going to the food bank.

“It’s all circular,” she added. “The giving, the paying it forward — it just keeps going around.”

The recent holidays amplified that notion, the executive director pointed out. On both sides of the giving equation, donors and clients alike proved yet again that most people are good at heart.

“It looked like we were going to be short on turkeys for Thanksgiving this year, because we had 900 families sign up,” said Love. “All of a sudden, 265 turkeys showed up. Frozen turkeys, that is.”

Despite the late rush of gobblers, things still were tight. That’s when some of the people who had a bird ready to take home made a generous decision that helped others in a bind.

“They said, ‘We’re in a bad situation, but it looks like some people are even worse off,’” the director shared. “And they gave their turkeys away to someone who needed it more.”

Metrics that would be seen favorably in other industries have an inverse effect for the food bank. Most retailers would be thrilled to see a spike in customers. Give them a year-over-year growth rate in the neighborhood of 10 percent, and they’ll be ecstatic.

“You don’t want things to be growing in this business,” said Love, who calculated that the food bank had an increase of more than 11 percent in the number of clients served as the end of the year approached. “We were up 85 families for Thanksgiving this year.”

A substantial portion of those families was new to the area, while others had faced crises that included loss of work or a child diagnosed with a life-threatening disease. The tipping point between barely getting by and falling through the cracks is tiny and fragile, according to the executive director.

“We find that a lot of these families are basically a paycheck away from crisis,” she said.

Last month, the food bank served 861 households with a total of nearly 1,900 household members. Of those, nearly 35 percent were children under the age of 18. The rest of the picture is rounded out by the elderly, veterans and the homeless — a category that has jumped dramatically in the past year.

“It has more than doubled, which is alarming to us, especially this time of year,” said Love. “We saw 19 homeless families in November. Most of them are in transition — either couch surfing, living in a tent in the woods or living in their cars.”

The majority of families who frequent the food bank, though, are trying their best to eke out a living on minimum wage.

“Most of them are working — often two jobs — but it’s expensive to live here,” said Love. “By the time they’ve paid for rent and utilities, there’s not much left for food.”

Seen as a pie chart, the clients at Bonner Community Food Bank include 38 percent families; 32 percent youth; 26 percent older people on fixed incomes and 4 percent homeless, food bank records show. For the older population, in particular, reaching out for food assistance remains a difficult move.

“It takes a lot of humility to come in and ask for help,” said Love, who credits the food bank’s market format for striking a balance between need and self-esteem. Clients actually use shopping carts as they make their way through aisles of food, complete with departments such as bakery, produce and meats.

Newcomers to the facility usually don’t know what to expect, she continued. After the “intake” process that leads to approval to become a client, they are led back to the section of the building where food is stored and distributed. Unlike the pre-assembled food boxes that once were handed over a counter, they now have more say in what items they select.

“It restores a lot of dignity for people,” said Love. “We’ve had people who walk into the market, see the shelves and the way things are laid out and just start crying.”

Items are displayed in food groups and programs such as the University of Idaho’s “Eat Smart Idaho” are introducing clients to healthier meal choices, according to the director.

So far this year, approximately 300,000 pounds of food has passed through the food bank — up considerably from 2015 figures. As in past years, it comes from a variety of sources. At the grassroots level, individual donors and community food drives such as those conducted by Food for Our Children, civic organizations and schools help fill the need for the hungry.

For example, Sandpoint Middle School dropped off more than 1,700 pounds of student-donated food in the days before Christmas.

Another major resource is the Food Rescue program, which works with food banks from around the region.

“They give us things like damaged canned goods and food that’s just before the sell-by date,” said Love, adding that distributing those items before they expire has never been a problem. “We get them on the shelves and they’re gone the same day.”

Second Harvest also networks with food banks in the Inland Northwest, using its bulk-purchasing clout to pass along good deals that help keep those organizations’ budgets from blowing up.

Closer to home, local grocery stores channel all manner of foodstuffs to the market, with daily pickups from Yoke’s, Safeway and Wal-Mart. Super One, meanwhile, donates bakery goods.

November and December are peak months at the Bonner Community Food Bank, where about 40 volunteers chalked up more than 680 unpaid hours in November alone. Fortunately, that same timeframe is buoyed by the spirit of holiday giving, which carries the food bank through early spring. The leanest months, Love noted, are June-August.

For many low-income families, that corresponds with a scaled-back schedule of free-and-reduced school meals. While the program still operates in the summer, a lack of transportation when school buses aren’t running makes it impossible for some families to take part.

The stories of need might tip the scales at the food bank, but it’s the little acts of sharing that balance things out emotionally.

“I see little miracles every day,” said Love. “Some days are hard and so many of the stories are shocking — and then someone tells you about something as simple as the new pair of socks they were able to afford that keep their feet warm.

“And there’s so much community support,” she continued. “Every year, we see new donors and new volunteers who step up. We have clients who ask, ‘How can I help?’ and then end up washing the windows or working in the flowerbeds. We have one volunteer who saw what we had done for her mother and her family and now she’s here working every day. Those kinds of things lift your spirit.”

The Bonner Community Food Bank is open Monday-Friday from 8 a.m.-3 p.m. For more information on food bank services, how to become a donor or joining as a volunteer, call 208-263-3663 or visit online at: www.foodbank83864.com