FLASH FOOD DRIVE: Help us reach our goal of 5,000 lbs of food by June 15th!

On the Saturday before Mother’s Day each year, area food banks anticipate the Stamp Out Hunger food drive as its primary way to fill the shelves for the long summer of need.

This year, the Stamp Out Hunger bags that typically go with the cards into your mailbox, and serve as a great reminder to give, were not delivered as planned. Our Post Office did not receive the bags for distribution and couldn’t resolve the problem in time for the food drive.
The result was a staggering drop in donations from previous years. Though the numbers are not in yet, we expect that we will have received only about 30 percent of last year’s drive totals.

Entering into this time of year without the food support that we anticipated is worrisome and can mean that Fishline will run out of food in June instead of August or September.

We hope that we can rally the support of our community and find a way to replace the donations that were missed during this important drive. If you normally donate during Stamp Out Hunger and did not have the opportunity this past weekend, please fill a bag to help feed a family now.  You can drop off your bags at our new location at 787 Liberty Lane NW (off Viking Avenue) or at any of our dropboxes throughout town, including the ones at Central Market, Albertsons and Red Apple. 

Help us reach our goal of 5,000 pounds of food donations by June 15.

 
Our community has always made sure that we have enough to serve the neighbors who most need our help, and we know that this year will be no exception. Thank you to all those who donated during Stamp Out Hunger and to all those who will help us out this summer.

Mary Nader 
Executive Director, North Kitsap Fishline

Fishline Opens at New Location

Fishline customer Allen Alexander, of Poulsbo, shops for produce Tuesday. Photo by:  Larry Steagall

POULSBO — North Kitsap Fishline nearly doubled in size Tuesday morning when it opened the doors to its new Poulsbo location. The nonprofit, which provides food, housing assistance and other resources to community members in need, is now in the 5,500-square-foot building on Liberty Lane that once housed Poulsbo RV. The old location, along a one-way section of Third Avenue, was 3,100 square feet, according to Executive Director Mary Nader. The shopping market area for clients is three times bigger, going from 400 square feet to 1,200 square feet.

Before its 10 a.m. opening Tuesday, volunteers helped unload food trucks as the sun shined through windows from the bay doors brightening the market and nearby storage areas. While clients and volunteers rave about the building space and its cheery feel, clients are especially happy with the available parking. The old location had six parking spots, while the new site has at least 60 with room for loading trucks. “The parking is a big thing and the bathrooms for the little kids,” said Allen Alexander, a Fishline client. The Third Avenue location did not have a public restroom, but the new building has a restroom in the front lobby for clients as well as a second one for staff and volunteers.

Alexander, who volunteered at local food banks decades ago, now is retired and struggles to make his fixed Social Security income meet his basic needs, like many retirees, he said. He praised Fishline and its volunteers for making the smaller site, where it had been since 1999, work so well.


“We were really squeezed in before. We just worked around it together,” Alexander said.
Since 2008, Fishline has seen demand for services double, causing its former location to feel a little smaller each year. It serves about 130 families a day, distributing between 5,000 and 7,000 pounds of food.

“You were knocking into each other. It wasn’t (Fishline’s) fault. It was just so tiny,” said Nancy Satterlee, another Fishline client. “I think people are happier now.”

Nader acknowledged the physical limitations of the old site, which prompted the nonprofit’s move, she said.

It wasn’t just the market that was cramped. Office space was limited, and there was no place to meet privately with clients, Nader said. Food preparation areas were tight. Walkways were limited to one person at a time. Food had to be stored off-site at three locations and volunteers had to toss bags of potatoes and wheel boxes of onions out of the way before a staff meeting could take place.
Now, Fishline has administrative office space as well as meeting space for staff and clients.
The nonprofit also will be able to offer clients a resource center with computer and Internet access, Nader said.

This article was originally posted on Kitsap Sun. 

NK Fishline's Great Move is Complete, Now for the Kitsap Great Give

On Tuesday, May 6th NK Fishline will open it's doors to serve our clients for the first time at 787 NW Liberty Lane in Poulsbo.  The GREAT MOVE is complete, but there is still work to be done!From 12:00am to 11:59pm PST, on May 6th, we will be participating in the Kitsap Great Give. All donations made to NK Fishline during this event will be matched by a local matching pool, organized by Kitsap Community Foundation and a national matching pool, organized by Give Local America. This is a great way to make your donation to NK Fishline stretch even further!

Here's how to donate:

-Set a reminder on your calendar that says "Give to NK Fishline during the Kitsap Great Give, May 6th"

-On May 6th, starting at 12am until 11:59pm PST visit our Kitsap Great Give donation site by CLICKING HERE or copying and pasting the following link into your browser: https://kitsapgreatgive.org/#npo/north-kitsap-fishline-food-bank

-Follow the prompts to donate!

*There are incentive prizes awarded to non-profit groups throughout the day, such as a $1000 prize for the group that receives the most donations before 9am!

Just some of the many reasons to give to NK Fishline:

• Donations to Fishline come from the entire community, 74% come from individual donors.
• 96% of donations go directly to client care. 
• With the help of over 225 volunteers, NK Fishline untilizes these donations to distribute and provide much needed services to help stablize families. 
• Since 1999, the year we moved to our 3rd Ave location, the number of household visits to NK Fishline has risen steadily.  In 2007, when the US recession began, that number tripled.  In 2013, we had 120 household visits per day.
  

In 2013:

• 2, 078, 928 meals were distributed
• 348 families received housing assistance
• 306 households benefited from our support services

NK Fishline's Future in a New Home

On May Day 2014, volunteers at North Kitsap Fishline Food Bank will flip its sign to “closed” one last time, surely to be a poignant and melancholy moment, and an era will end. For 15 years, our building on Third Avenue has been witness to the hopes and dreams, and the fears and tears, of thousands of neighbors who humbly came to its doors during the toughest times of their lives. This building gave its all to warmly greet its visitors, and we could swear that somehow its rooms expanded to meet the swell of demand that is part of every downward economic cycle. 

From a building the same size as an average home, millions of meals were distributed, thousands received help to keep their homes or to keep them warm, thousands more had holiday meals or birthday gifts for their children who would have otherwise gone without. From the nine household visits a day that were typical when we first opened on Third Avenue, our daily average is now 120. The amount of food, people and supportive services necessary to sustain that level of need has grown in proportion, requiring increases in storage capacity, refrigerated space, office space, and parking.

It is remarkable that we’ve been able to make it work as long as we have. Our staff and volunteers have been so resourceful and patient. Most remarkable, though, is the support of our loving community — they have always kept the food and donations flowing through good times and bad.

As well as this building has done its job, it could no longer contain this kind of growth and expansion. A larger, more suitable space was finally found which could host the exciting programs that only needed a little elbow room to grow. 

Our community then came together, and a vacant Poulsbo RV showroom transformed to the welcoming safe haven which would become its new destiny. Excitement began to build, and donations came in from contractors, construction suppliers and so many groups, businesses and individuals. Volunteers spent their Saturdays painting and cleaning, pulling weeds and running computer wire. Joining together to prepare for the new chapter of this important community provider has been uplifting and galvanizing. 

When we complete this move, Fishline will be able to reach for its highest potential. The grocery-store style market, previously squeezed into 400 square feet, will now have 1,200 square feet of open-air shopping. Personal, heart-wrenching conversations with clients can now take place in private. Client enrichment classes and seminars, impossible to consider because we didn’t even have a meeting room before, can now be held in our Resource Center, a space that will also contain computers for client use. Our ability to provide wraparound services will grow as we invite community experts in the fields of finance, nutrition, employment and health care to be available for clients in need of their guidance. 

We will miss our little building on Third Avenue. Many extraordinary memories took place there. Peoples’ lives were changed for the better every day we opened our doors. And, thanks to the unflagging commitment of so many caretakers of Fishline’s mission through these 47 years, progress was made toward the goal that has guided us from the start, a community free from hunger and homelessness. 

The magic and beauty which made these moments and this progress possible goes with us, in the hearts of our noble volunteers and dedicated staff, in the gratitude expressed every day by our clients, in the generosity and greatness of spirit of our community. These reminders of the goodness of humanity transcend time and place and will guarantee the safety of troubled neighbors for years to come.

This article was originally printed at Kitsap Sun's website and can be found here.

An Environment Where Promising Futures Can Grow

As we come closer to the move to our new facility, you can feel a new energy pulsing through the halls of our food bank on 3rd Avenue.  This is the energy of possibility, which partially comes about because ideas that have lied dormant in the minds and hearts of our staff and volunteers can now be explored. 

Without facility limitations, we now have permission to move into areas we believe will result in the best outcome for our clients.  You can only imagine how invigorating this is for the creative people who have come together so they can lift burdens and create opportunities.

But to truly implement programs that offer lasting benefit, we must be very clear about the dynamics of economic crisis, the root causes and what might be a way out of the varying downturns experienced by so many in our community.

So our Client Services Team has come together to learn, through surveys and follow up conversations with clients who've received our help, which of our services have had the greatest positive impact and where people continue to struggle.  Should Fishline offer a new branch of services?  Are clients telling us about plaguing issues that can be solved through greater community effort?  Can education be a key to promoting well being and breaking negative cycles?  These questions and more are being asked by skilled volunteers trained to draw out honest responses.

What we learn from these outcomes will turn into valuable planning tools.  Classes, already taking shape through discussions with community experts, can be organized and delivered through our new Resource Center, where people can learn about nutrition, employment techniques, smart budgeting and health and family care.  

Information resources can be offered to address the most commonly-experienced crisis contributors, such as foreclosures, health problems, unemployment and addictions.   Sometimes just learning about our own self-defeating patterns or limiting perceptions can prompt a shift to a more positive outlook, increasing odds for success.  Onsite consultants will be available to provide guidance in a confidential, safe environment - perhaps offering just the right advice to move an individual forward and restoring hope.

At the heart of this effort is a desire to go beyond our emergency services and provide supportive services, recognizing that client empowerment is the best way to open up possibilities.  In a world where change happens so quickly, and there seems to be a constant shuffling of job possibilities and economic challenges, most of us need friends or mentors to help us navigate our dizzying times.  Through this support, we will embody the Fishline mission, turning the S.O.S. request for help into a new S.O.S., Stability, Opportunity and Success.

It might not surprise you that many people think the name Fishline came from the old adage about teaching people to fish instead of giving them the fish, thereby feeding them for a lifetime.  Though that isn't the original premise of the name, we can surely make it so through these efforts...and bring about the possibilities for long-term prosperity that lie within every crisis.

Thanks to your support and your donations, this bright new horizon is unfolding for Fishline and the community it serves.  We hope that what can come from it is the fertile environment where promising futures can grow, the best outcome of all.

Learn more about our new building needs and how you can help by clicking here. 

Village is Making a New Home Become a Reality

Photo Credit:  Nichole Connor

There is a popular adage, "It takes a village", that reminds us that there are some goals that cannot be reached alone. This has always been the case for Fishline, whose mission would be impossible to realize were it not for the legions of helping hands and hearts that everyday come together to lift the burdens of their neighbors. 

But that cooperative effort has risen to a new level as we prepare our new facility on Viking Avenue. From the start, the best and brightest in our community have come forward to offer assistance, services, materials and sweat equity. Nearly every day, individuals and organizations join the ranks of this rehabilitation army and, before our very eyes, an abandoned building is transforming. School kids join with local military groups, working side-by-side with families and church groups with one thing in common - a love for their community and a belief in the good work that Fishline represents.

Miles Yanick and Associates, Architect, has helped us put our dream onto paper and has gone ahead to pave the way with permits, regulations and feasibility. Sandy Wenberg donated her color expertise to help us create a color palate that is soothing for our clients and volunteers. Peninsula Paints has donated all the paint, no small donation when considering the tall walls that surround our market, and Chad Lyons Painting has donated the labor. Swift Plumbing will put in all our fixtures for free, which came to us at no cost because Ferguson Plumbing donated them.

And, in a nearly perfect confluence of events, a total remodel of Town and Country on Bainbridge Island will mean that Fishline can receive repurposed refrigeration and shelving and even possibly checkout equipment, making our grocery store design complete.
 
When we asked that technology be upgraded so we could use a progressive digital signage system to keep our clients informed while shopping, David Graves, our long-time IT volunteer, joined forces with a local Rotarian to fund the system and get it installed. And, when in the midst of all this activity, our precious van needed extensive repairs, Ken's Northwest Automotive did what they have done for years - they fixed it for free.

The Poulsbo Lions Club worked alongside Fishline volunteers to clear out years of scotch broom and other uninvited guests to renew the greenery. Hill Moving has donated pallet jacks and a forklift, standing ready to help us move when the time comes. And Tim Ryan Construction has overseen the project, donating materials and labor while working with our team to do the most work for the littlest cost. 

All of this coordination has been orchestrated by our MVP, Rick Lander (pictured above with a volunteer), who has masterfully and amiably mediated between Fishline and a sometimes baffling construction world to facilitate this huge project, keeping us on schedule and under budget.

In dozens of ways, our neighbors have come together to situate Fishline in a home that should meet its needs for decades to come. There is no way that we can adequately thank all those who have helped thus far and those who will help us in the months and years ahead. We just hope that, when we open Fishline on that happy day this Spring, our village can be proud that it made it possible.





Are you interested in being a part of this wonderful project? Click here to see project updates and how you can help!




how folks can get involved.)

We Need Volunteers!! Can you help?!

There are several volunteer positions open at this time – please let us know if you or someone you know might be interested in helping us fill them.  You can fill out a volunteer application online by clicking here.

Drivers: Take on a single grocery store run or be a substitute.  All that’s needed is a clean driving record (less than 3 moving violations in the last 3 years).  Up early anyway?  Be a substitute for this early run!

Receptionists:  An ability to work well with clients and be comfortable with light computer work will make you the perfect receptionist.  We’ll train you so you’re able to fill in when there’s an opening.

Check-out: This is an opportunity to get to know our clients and see how happy they are to receive our help…we have a temporary opening on Monday mornings and a need for substitutes to fill in.

Food prep: We are light on Wednesday mornings and Mondays.  If you can help us either of those days, we’d be grateful.

Saturday at Second Season: It’s a busy day, so you’ll be able to enjoy being a part of this downtown boutique experience at its best. 

Thanks to you all for keeping us moving and serving.