The Colville, Wash.-based Northeast Washington Hunger Coalition will hold its third annual Local Farm Fresh Food Gala Dinner on Saturday, Feb. 11, in Colville. 

All donations and gifts from the gala, which will be at the Stevens County Ag and Trade Center, will go toward the Farm to Food Pantry and the Farm to School programs, says Debra Hansen, director of Washington State University Stevens County Extension and president of the hunger coalition’s board. 

Gala doors open at 4:30 p.m., says Hansen. A social hour, silent auction, a dinner of prime rib and locally grown produce, and St. Valentine’s Day-themed dessert items will be offered, says a press release about the event. Event tickets cost $25, with the dinner included, the release says.

The gala will also be celebrating three CIVIC awards the hunger coalition has received from Second Harvest of the Inland Northwest in the volunteerism, innovation, and public relations categories, it says. For more information about the gala, or to purchase tickets, contact Susan Urhausen at 509.738.4565 or sumau@centurytel.net.

The Farm to Food Pantry program started as a three-year pilot program from 2014 to 2016, says Hansen. So far, 15 food banks in Stevens, Ferry, and Pend Oreille counties have signed on as program members, she says.

The program is permanent, pending funding, says Nils Johnson, agriculture program coordinator for WSU Stevens County Extension and coordinator for the Farm to Food Pantry and Farm to School programs.

The two programs involve the hunger coalition purchasing fresh produce at wholesale prices—about 50 percent of regular farmers’ market pricing. The produce is then sold at the same price to local food banks and schools, although Johnson says the programs looks to work with more establishments in the future. 

“Our goal is to facilitate farmers developing relations with other institutions,” Johnson says. “First with schools. We’ve had some success there—and we expect to have more success this next year—but also with other institutions, including the casinos and hospital system.” The Farm to Food Pantry and Farm to School programs would serve as a delivery service between farmers, schools, food pantries, and other institutions.

To deliver the produce, the hunger coalition uses two CoolPup trailers that enable it to better reach farmers, schools, and food pantries, Johnson says. The trailers are refrigerated and small enough to be pulled behind a small SUV.

Johnson says the trailers will hold 24 banana boxes, which are a type of box often available at food pantries. He says the trailers will hold 800 to 1,000 pounds of heavy fruit, or $500 worth of lettuce, which he uses as an example of a lighter shipment.

Johnson says one of the trailers was factory built and sponsored by Catholic Charities of Spokane. The other was built using a $3,500 grant from Spokane-based Northwest Farm Credit Services. Catholic Charities of Spokane also contributed $500 for the second trailer’s portable generator, and the hunger coalition contributed another $400 for that generator and additional costs. That second generator was stolen last summer, says Johnson. 

The first pickup and delivery was 24 banana boxes of lettuce in May 2016, he says. 

The hunger coalition hopes to add one to three more CoolPup trailers in the future, says Johnson. 

“If we had three, four, maybe even five through (Stevens County), it would allow us to have a less expensive delivery scenario,” he says.

Johnson says he finds the business model interesting because of how small the scales are. Last year, 10 farmers were in the programs, and the largest upfront-order contract was $500, he says.

“Five hundred dollars in sales by many standards would be nothing … but in this context, it makes a huge difference,” Johnson says.

Such a sale enables the organization to develop relationships with farmers and “keep the infrastructure going, and then the infrastructure is used to deliver produce,” he says.

He says a great amount of produce the programs work with comes from farmers, but some also can come from other sources. 

Established as an initiative of the Colville-based Providence Mount Carmel Hospital in 2011, the Northeast Washington Hunger Coalition received nonprofit status in 2013, says Hansen. The organization also offers cooking classes, a veterans’ outreach program, free flu shots through Providence Mount Carmel Hospital, grant writing training for food banks, and other related services, she says. The coalition currently consists of 15 food banks and nine community organizations, she says.