SNOQUALMIE VALLEY – As the Snoqualmie Valley continues to grow, the need for assistance by both families and individuals is also on the rise.

Organizations are working hard to ensure that everyone can enjoy the holiday season without stressing about the logistics of it all.

There are three main food banks in the Snoqualmie Valley, each helping out a different section of the Valley’s population. Hopelink, located in Carnation, helps to serve the Lower Valley that stretches to Duvall. The Snoqualmie Tribe Food Bank is also located in Carnation and serves the entire Valley, Upper and Lower. The North Bend Helping Hands Food Bank is there for folks in the Upper Valley, including the North Bend, Snoqualmie, Fall City and Preston areas.

Organizations such as food banks, along with other charitable groups, rely on the generosity of the community to help in aiding those in need. During the holiday season it becomes more challenging for some families to provide food as well as gifts, in addition to trying to stay warm.

The Helping Hands Food Bank hopes to reach out to the community on an individual level through donations, but also joins with organizations to aid in the effort. Gail Gergasko, assistant coordinator of the Helping Hands Food Bank, explained how other organizations in the area are some of the driving forces behind the food bank.

“With the help of food drives at Mount Si [high school] and a partnership with QFC, along with many other drives, we help to get food together to give away for Thanksgiving meals,” Gergasko said.

Gergasko explained that she is beginning to see the highest need ever in the Snoqualmie Valley.

“We help around 230 families a week, translating to about 800 individuals and this number is continuing to grow,” she said.

In the last five years the Helping Hands Food Bank has seen the number of people needing its help nearly double. There has been a change, however, in the demographics of those going to food banks for support in recent years.

“[It has been] much different from the past,” said Kenneth McCarty, coordinator of the Helping Hands Bend Food Bank. “We see a lot more ‘working men’ coming for support, as well as ex-Boeing and Microsoft employees.”

The Lower Snoqualmie Valley is showing the same exponential growth and Hopelink not only acts as a food bank, but provides programs geared toward helping individuals improve their overall situation.

“We offer programs to help individuals and families with their utility bills because it is necessary to have heat during the winter months, and we have programs to help clothe people. Our holiday program is unique and special because it allows for families to shop through a point system so that they can pick their gifts as opposed to being already decided for them, which allows the gifts to be more personalized and meaningful,” said Katie Amodei, spokesperson for Hopelink.

Hopelink is also helping individuals through adult literacy classes, as well as helping with transitional housing.

“It is important to show people how to grow, which is why it is important to us to help people help themselves, which is why we offer so many programs,” Amodei said.

For Thanksgiving, Hopelink offers a unique program as it understands that not everyone might want a turkey for their Thanksgiving meal. When setting up their Thanksgiving baskets they include many of the essentials such as vegetables, and canned pumpkin. The organization strives to provide each family with a half gallon of milk and at least one-dozen eggs; but each basket also receives a gift card to a grocery store so that whomever receives it can pick which protein they would like to serve for their meal.

“It is important to understand that everyone is unique and we are serving a lot of families and some of those might be vegetarian or have cultural beliefs, etc. It is our hope to help; however the more generous the community is, the more people we can feed” said Kristin Avery, director of the Carnation Hopelink.

* For information on how to help food banks and other service organization this holiday season, contact the Snoqualmie Tribe food bank at (425) 471-1061, the Helping Hands Food Bank at (425) 888-0096 or Hopelink at (425) 333-4163.