TACOMA, Wash. — David Thompson is planting an idea that can hopefully grow into a sustainable solution.
Thompson has set up various food stations around Tacoma through his Food is Free Tacoma program, where fresh fruit and vegetables are offered to those who need it most, free of charge.
In addition to being a good gesture, the work highlights how delicate our food supply is, and how many aren’t prepared for the worst.
“Food security is a really big issue,” Thompson said. “If you think about it, in the beginning of the pandemic, we saw a lot of food shortages. People only have about three days of food supply in their house. So if there’s a big situation that happens or a big shortage, that’s going to affect them within a few days.”
Thompson's efforts, along with many others, seemed to be paying off in dealing with food insecurity.
Since 2016, food insecurity was actually on the decline in Pierce County. But after a year of COVID-19 restrictions and unemployment, experts predict a large spike in the wrong direction.
“In Pierce County, we had a 40% increase in food insecurity reported by our food pantry programs,” said Roger Cortes, Director of Operations at Emergency Food Network. “We pushed over 18 million pounds in food in just in 2020 alone.”
A study by Washington State University also shows that half of those newly unemployed were food insecure, and reported more stress, anxiety, depression and poor diet.
Now as the state slowly starts to open up again, Thompson and other community organizers hope the right lessons were learned from 2020, and the reality we live in now.
“Food insecurity is with us, and it’s going to be here with us, and it’s not going to go away,” Thompson said. “With the supply system being as vulnerable as it is, if we don’t do something about it and bring it back local, we could have real, real problems.”
“So many people are one meal away, or one paycheck away from being homeless. And that’s actually really, really scary,” Cortes said.