Q&A with Food Bank of Alaska CEO

WASILLA — Food Bank of Alaska CEO Jim Baldwin recently participated in a question and answer interview to discuss how their staff, community partners, and volunteers across the state have been adapting to the increased demand for food services during the pandemic, including their efforts here in the Valley.

Q: So, how have things been the last year?

“The last year has just been really crazy with the surge in folks needing food assistance because of the COVID pandemic, and the challenge of course has been meeting everybody’s needs, getting it wherever it needs to go in the state… One of the things we saw during the pandemic was a lot of families and individuals turning to our pantries and assistance that never thought they would ever have to.”

Q: What has the Food Bank of Alaska done to adapt to the pandemic?

“Over the last year with all of the initial hunker down orders, and layoffs, and everything else that’s been reported, we’ve really increased the volume of food. We’re probably gonna’ hit almost eleven million pounds of food this year, versus the seven and half I think it was last year. So, it’s been a tremendous community effort, which is really, really cool… We’re starting to see a little bit of settling down… Numbers are still high but they’re not continuing to climb. So, that’s good.”

Q: What else have you done to keep up with everything?

“When this pandemic first hit last spring, we couldn’t meet the demand with our existing facility, so we were able to get Walmart to donate the use of the empty Sam’s Club at the Tikahtnu Center. That has been just been a tremendous resource… It has been a real challenge but fortunately… we just had a tremendous outpouring of tremendous support, people stepping up, and that’s always really heartwarming when we’re going through these challenges... I think the silver lining in the whole pandemic is that we made a lot of new partnerships. We made a lot of new connections with rural communities, and businesses, and donors, and everything else… It’ll serve those communities for many, many years in the future.”

Q: What are some of your plans for the future?

“We made a strategic plan to move forward, and we continue to raise funds for our capital campaign and again, through the generosity of many, many donors… We raised the funds. We purchased a building and closed on it at the end of last year and we’re in the process now of remodeling it so we can move in this summer and have a larger facility to continue long term, to meet the needs of the communities throughout the state.”

Q: What do your efforts in the Valley look like?

“Kind of the same thing that’s going on in Anchorage and the rest of the state… I think we distributed about 1.7 million pounds in the Valley alone [as of June 30, 2020]. We recognize that the Valley is a growing area… Knowing the volume that’s food that’s needed, we just have wonderful partners spread out throughout the Valley doing their work… My board of directors has given me the green light to start pursuing a branch facility in the Valley… We’re just starting the search now, looking at potential sites with space across the Valley where we can store food, refrigerated, frozen… That’ll better serve those pantries and the community at large if we can get food and store it out there. It will save a lot of time and expense than having to come all the way into Anchorage.”

Q: Are you all feeling confident moving forward?

“We are… The USDA commodities have picked up in the last year or so. Nobody knows what the future will look like of course. But, this is just really good, shelf-stable, tons and tons, millions of pounds of commodities coming into our state and the Food Bank of Alaska is the primary distributor of all of that.”

For more information about the Food Bank of Alaska and food assistance programs, including services that support those affected by COVID-19, visit foodbankofalaska.org/help/covid19-food-resources

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman reporter Jacob Mann at jacob.mann@frontiersman.com