MOSES LAKE — Community Services of Moses Lake is preparing to distribute up to 1,600 Thanksgiving meals later this month while continuing to meet steady demand from local families and pursuing a major expansion that leaders say could transform how much food the organization can rescue and distribute across Central Washington.

The food bank's annual Thanksgiving meal distribution is scheduled for Nov. 23 and will be conducted as a drive-thru event at the food bank facility. People who miss the drive-thru can ask for a Thanksgiving box Tuesday and Wednesday, but it depends on availability. 

Administrative Manager Lane Storwick said the organization expects to provide between 1,500 and 1,600 holiday meal boxes, though demand is likely to exceed available supplies.

“Our goals this year are to have about 1,500-1,600 meals that we're going to be giving out,” Storwick said. “Last year we did about 1,700. It is very cost-prohibitive. It takes a lot of money to buy turkeys and chickens and the full meal.”

The Thanksgiving boxes include a turkey or chicken and traditional holiday side dishes, allowing families to prepare a complete Thanksgiving dinner.

Storwick said the meals are especially important for families struggling with rising living costs.

“For a lot of people, it's the only way they'll get that meal,” she said. “It is a spendy meal, and it is something that people can eat on for several days.”

Vehicles picking up meals will be routed through a drive-thru system around the food bank property. Staff and volunteers will check in clients before meals are loaded into vehicles. 

“We may have more visitors than what we're able to provide this year,” Storwick said. “So there's going to be people that are going to be turned away, unfortunately.”

While demand remains high, food bank leaders said service numbers have largely stabilized compared to last year.

“Actually, we're about the same, if not just a little bit lower,” Storwick said.

Although the number of people seeking assistance has not increased significantly over the past year, she said families continue to face pressure from rising food, housing and transportation costs.

The food bank's biggest challenge, according to Storwick, is securing enough local funding to match state and grant dollars used to purchase food.

“We are mostly grant-funded, but all of our grants come with what is called a match,” Storwick said. “If we get a grant for $200,000, then we have to come up with $100,000 from other sources.”

As the holiday season approaches, leaders say the organization's needs remain largely unchanged: food, funding and volunteers.

“Our greatest needs is always three things: food donations, money donations and donations of people's time,” Storwick said.

The food bank is currently seeking donations of turkeys, whole chickens, stuffing, broth and other holiday meal items. Monetary donations can be made online or directly at the food bank and will be used to purchase food for holiday distributions.

Community businesses are also being encouraged to participate.

“We sent out probably about 500 (letters), and we got about four responses,” Storwick said. “It would be wonderful if some of the businesses in town would think about us and maybe get involved with this event.”

Operations Manager Jim Gantenbien said locally donated food and funds remain in Moses Lake to support local families.

“When they donate food, labor, money, it stays in Moses Lake,” Gantenbien said. “If somebody comes in and says, ‘Hey, I've got this $100 I want to give to the food bank,’ that's going to stay in our community.”

In addition to supporting Moses Lake, Community Services serves as a regional distribution hub that helps coordinate state-provided food deliveries to 47 other food pantries across six counties.

Looking beyond Thanksgiving, food bank leaders are focused on an expansion project they believe will address one of the organization's most persistent challenges: storage space.

Community Services plans to construct a fourth warehouse and hopes to break ground in the coming weeks. The project will provide additional storage space for food donations, but organizers are still seeking funding for a large commercial freezer and cooler.

“We're building that fourth warehouse because of just these situations where people have food they want to give us, sometimes several trucks full, and we don’t have the space to put it,” Storwick said. “We have an opportunity to take food and cannot take it all. We want to change that.”

The organization estimates it will need roughly $600,000 to install the large refrigeration and freezer systems after the warehouse is completed.

According to Storwick, expanded cold storage would allow the food bank to accept significantly larger food donations from manufacturers, distributors and other suppliers.

“With that freezer and cooler space, we can actually start looking for more food,” she said. “We have trucks. We could go further. We could take more, and so it would really be a game changer for us.”

Gantenbien said limited storage forces the organization to decline some donations of perishable foods despite ongoing demand.

“It'll finally get us to where, ‘No problem, we'll take that. No problem, we'll take that,’” Gantenbien said. “That has been the one problem that Moses Lake Food Bank has had since I started working 14 years ago, and that is storage of frozen and perishable items.”

The expanded facility would allow the food bank to rescue larger quantities of food that might otherwise go to waste, including truckloads of produce, frozen foods and other perishable products.

Until additional storage is available, the food bank continues to rely on refrigerated trailers and creative logistics to handle unexpected deliveries, including produce, salad mixes and frozen foods.

As winter approaches, leaders say their mission remains straightforward.

“Making sure we have enough food for everybody,” Gantenbien said. “That's the main priority.”

Residents interested in supporting the Thanksgiving distribution or the food bank's ongoing operations can donate food, volunteer their time or contribute financially through Community Services of Moses Lake. Even small recurring donations can have a significant impact, Storwick said.

“If you have an extra $20 a month that you can put towards the food bank,” she said, “it can really make a difference.”

This story was corrected Nov. 10. The original story had the incorrect date for the Thanksgiving Meal handout.

    Community Services of Moses Lake is preparing to provide around 1,600 families their Thanksgiving meal Nov. 25. The food bank is still seeking donations for the annual food giveaway with frozen turkeys and chickens being top priorities.
  

    A client picks out food at the Community Services of Moses Lake Monday afternoon. The inside of the facility will be closed Monday Nov. 25 with a drive-thru planned to distribute Thanksgiving food boxes.