SEATTLE — Dignity for Divas launched in 2012 to help unhoused women.
The main goal, according to DfD Founder and Director Nikki Gane-Butler, is to see women and their families move into permanent housing.
Gane-Butler, who also experienced homelessness, said the DfD year-long program for women has a 72% success rate. It's estimated that about 700 women have graduated from the program, which includes services such as financial literacy, cooking classes, yoga, health and beauty consulting, and a move-in process to permanent housing.
Each Diva receives a move-in kit that includes a laundry basket, cookware, utensils, small appliances, toiletries, and self-care items.
The missing piece, according to Gane-Butler, was a food pantry.
"This was the missing link - food access," Gane-Butler said. "We needed desperately for our participants coming into the space to get all their needs met."
Because the nonprofit offers cooking classes, Gane-Butler said the food pantry was the perfect complement to that program.
"You can't eat unhealthy food, and then say, 'I'm healing,'" Gane-Butler said.
The DfD food pantry was made possible through support from Champions of Change, Safeway, Feasible Feasts, and Vault 89.
Putting food pantries in places like DfD is what the group collaboration wants to see happen more across Washington state.
"We need to go beyond that to providing food and places where people can get other services and get out of this cycle of food insecurity," said Sara Osborne, Safeway's director of public affairs.
People who face food insecurity do not have access to sufficient food, or food of adequate quality, to meet basic needs.
Currently, one in 11 people in Washington state are facing hunger, according to Feeding America. That same data shows one in eight children face hunger.
Osborne said while food banks work to meet community needs, those entities simply "can't meet the demand right now."
The "shopping style" food pantry has become more popular in the Seattle area because it allows families to be in control of their food choices and experience a true grocery shopping experience.
"People are coming here. It's centered in love and it's not a place where it's a transactional experience inducing anxiety, making people feel shame," Osborne said. "They come here and they feel joy."
The food pantry is open weekly and allows DfD program women to shop for themselves and their families.
It's stocked with fresh produce, meat, milk, cheese, eggs, snacks, cereal, cooking utensils, toiletries, diapers, coffee, spices, and baking ingredients.
"You cannot remove dignity from the narrative," Gane-Butler said. "If I box something up for you, then I'm deciding. I'm taking a choice away. Every time [a Diva] comes in here, she's choosing herself. She's choosing to show up and then we're celebrating that."
One single mom Diva, Elimika Jones, who is now interning at the nonprofit's office said the food pantry is life-changing.
"I had a house fire, so me and my son were homeless for about a year," Jones said.
Jones said having the power to shop for her family is important. The food pantry offsets costs for Jones as she focuses on having healthy food in the house for her 11-year-old son.
"When he comes home from school, like most kids, they're hungry. They want something to snack on before dinner," Jones said. "I'll have a lot of little snacks to pick from here. So, he'll be very happy when I come home today."
Gane-Butler said she is proud of what the DfD team has achieved over the years and she is thankful for the community's support to add services like a food pantry.
Throughout the one-year DfD program, Gane-Butler said it's most crucial for women to heal in mind, body, and spirit.
"It hurts to grow, but you have to stretch beyond yourself and you have to shift your mindset so that you can see what you can truly be," Gane-Butler said.
DfD welcomes volunteers to help at the food pantry and with other services it provides. To learn more, click here.
To connect with someone about installing a food pantry at an already established organization serving the community, email info@championsofchangefoundation.org.