WSDA Funding Used To Help Address Hunger Statewide

Thanks to $6.4 million provided by the state legislature, throughout 2021 the Washington State Department of Agriculture allocated grant funding to over 80 food assistance organizations statewide. The WSDA’s Hector Castro, said the supplemental capacity grants were intended to help serve communities more effectively.

"The food donations are one aspect of it, but they need places to store that food, they need a way to deliver that food. These supplemental capacity grants were intended to assist the food assistance organizations around the state to have those tools that they.”

Most of the grants were awarded in March and April with a June 30^th deadline to spend the funding. Castro, said thanks to funding from the WSDA, the Pierce County based Emergency Food Network was able to construct an office building to accommodate a growing number of employees.

"They had long wanted to get an office put together that could hold their staff and this supplemental capacity grant allowed them to do that by allowing them to build a larger building with ten offices and some meeting space."

The grants were a response to the increasing pressure on the food assistance organizations in 25 different counties. 

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