Who’s Hungry on Vashon? You may be surprised

Tuesday, December 8, 6:30PM at the Penny Farcy Building, Voice of Vashon (VoV) will partner with Vashon Community Care Foundation (VCCF) and the Vashon Maury Community Food Bank to present a community Town Hall and a new twist on VCC’s Telling Stories series.  “Who’s Hungry on Vashon” will explore, with stories and a community forum, the current state of food insecurity on the Islands.  

What is food insecurity?  It has many facets, many faces, and it’s essentially living in an economic situation that requires choosing between buying food and paying for other essentials.  It may mean a person is living in an abusive situation where access to food is denied either financially or physically. It could happen in a family where adults are under-employed or temporarily unemployed and the means of acquiring proper nutrition are not available.  For many, it is living on a fixed income that just doesn’t stretch far enough. All these cases and more exist on Vashon.  In fact, more than 16% of our Island’s residents use the Food Bank in a year.   

Food Bank Director, Robbie  Rohr, will moderate the event which will include stories of hunger among Vashon residents, as well as an open forum with panelists Kathleen Johnson, VYFS Executive Director,  Emily Scott, Vashon Food Bank Volunteer Coordinator and Merrilee Runyan of Vashon Island Growers Association (VIGA) and its program, the Food Access Partnership which makes locally grown healthy food accessible to low income islanders.  
Representatives from Island non-profit organizations serving our diverse population will join the audience and panelists in a discussion aimed at identifying gaps in service to those in need on Vashon-Maury Islands, and ways that the community can create solutions.

The forum will be broadcast live on KVSH, 101.9FM radio, on the KVSH phone app and on voiceofvashon.org.  It will also be videotaped for later broadcast on  VoV TV Comcast Channel 21. All are welcome!  For those wishing to do so, there is a suggested donation of $10 for Vashon Community Care  or non-perishable foods for the Food Bank.