Together, We Feed Washington

We have great news from Olympia: last week, our two priority bills that will enhance access to healthy school meals for students passed out of the House! Thank you for sending emails to state representatives to ask for their support. Both bills are now passed over to the Senate for consideration, so stay tuned to help us keep up the volume so these bills will get to the Governor’s desk to be signed into law!

Next week, we’ll learn more about where our budget priorities stand when the Senate and the House release their proposals for the supplemental operating budget early next week. Included in our budget priorities is a request for an additional $58 million for the We Feed Washington program. We Feed Washington is an innovative collaboration between our state Department of Agriculture, Washington farmers, and hunger relief organizations throughout our state. Funding is used to provide boxes of locally grown and sourced nutritious food for our neighbors in need.

The need for food boxes from We Feed Washington has grown at a time when we see high food costs making nutritious food even less affordable for struggling families, and when nationwide supply chain and labor shortages have slowed the flow of federal commodities and private donations of food to stock food pantry shelves. We Feed Washington has ensured us food resources for food banks that are already in state, side-stepping those national supply chain issues. But even better: We Feed Washington has helped Washington farm businesses to survive, raising revenue for our struggling family farms that are producing food to put on the tables of struggling families.

What You Can Do