For more than 38 years, Mount Si Food Bank, run by area pastors, has been faithfully helping people in need around the Valley. Around 2008, the Snoqualmie Valley Ministerial Association (SVMA) appointed a management team to oversee operations of the food bank. While under this management, many donations were made to the food bank, a SVMA ministry. The donations were made to the faith-based, Christian ministry, not to the people installed to manage daily operations. Now, this group of faith-filled men of integrity, members of our community who have done nothing but try to help others, are being tried in the court of public opinion without the benefit of the facts of this case.

The one mistake the SVMA made was that they perhaps trusted this management team too much. My questions are: What is a non-profit organization doing amassing that amount of money? Why would they think that the donations made to the food bank belong to them? Why would a church give the Christian organization the boot in favor of the secular one?

Feeding the hungry and helping those in need is not a competition. The SVMA wants to do this while spreading God’s word, so they took only what was theirs in order to continue elsewhere the ministry they started.

Kim Wagner

North Bend