Feeding Washington

Feeding Washington is leading collective efforts to end hunger in Washington state. We are a statewide membership association of Washington food banks and the network they support. Our two current member organizations, Food Lifeline (serving Western Washington) and Second Harvest (serving Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho), are part of the Feeding America network and provide food to 632 food banks, pantries and meal programs that feed approximately one million people in Washington every year. We identify solutions to hunger at a statewide level by working with elected officials, funders, food industry partners and other hunger relief organizations. At the same time, by supporting and working alongside the state’s network of food banks, pantries and meal programs, we help make change at a community level. Being a part of the Feeding America network allows us to leverage relationships and share best practices from across the biggest hunger relief system in the country. Feeding Washington is uniquely positioned to convene hunger relief organizations at all levels in Washington state and foster collaboration. Our first program, Feeding the Northwest, is a produce cooperative in partnership with food banks in Washington, Oregon and Idaho that sources and distributes millions of pounds of fresh, nutritious fruits and vegetables to the food bank system every year. We partner with Pacific Northwest farmers and food processors to source produce from our agriculturally rich region. We then work with food banks, pantries and meal programs to distribute this nutritious food to people facing hunger. Through our Hunger Relief Insights program we provide software and technical assistance to any food bank, pantry or meal program in the network that wants to participate in this program. This software, known as Link2Feed, is an online database used by food banks across the country.