Allied People Offering Year-Round Outreach (APOYO) is still waiting to hear from CWU on its potential relocation to the New York Teriyaki building after their lease with CWU was not renewed.

APOYO is a no-paperwork, no questions asked food bank offering support to those in the Ellensburg area. CWU recently did not renew its lease on the building APOYO is currently housed in. Prior to the pandemic, APOYO distributed clothes along with food to those in need of it. Since then, it has only been distributing food, most of which comes from Northwest Harvest, a Washington state hunger relief agency.

When talking about APOYO moving to the New York Teriyaki building, Patricia Garrison, secretary and treasurer of APOYO, said it would be a much larger space and a nice change for the food bank. 

Currently, the distribution center is located in a small house right next to CWU’s Challenge Course. The New York Teriyaki building located on East University Way is the current proposed temporary location that CWU is planning to move APOYO to.

ASCWU Director of Governmental Affairs Edgar Espino said his position was to get more of ASCWU involved in the matter and that he had proposed the idea of moving APOYO from temporarily being housed in the New York Teriyaki building to permanently being housed in Old Heat.

“It just doesn’t sit right with me, the fact that they want to evict a food bank off a university during a pandemic,” Espinio said.

Old Heat was APOYO’s previous building before it’s current lot. It would be moved there after a planned remodeling.

“We’re planning to turn that building into a multicultural center, just a sneak peak,” Espino said. 

He hopes that they can move APOYO back to that building as a permanent place instead of the temporary situation. The main point of the move to the New York Teriyaki building would be for APOYO to have time to figure out a permanent residence.

One of the other ideas Espino heard was to turn the current lot with the house into an actual food bank. 

“They’re exploring their options at the moment,” Espino said.

Garrison said the deadline for the negotiations with CWU for their move is Oct. 31, with them unsure about whether it would be moving out of their current lot or for them to find a permanent solution.