Allied People Offering Year-Round Outreach (APOYO), a local food bank, is struggling to find meat donations. 

“Northwest Harvest hasn’t been sending the usual chicken that we usually get on our Wednesday deliveries,” Jesús Erasto-García, an administrative assistant at APOYO, said. 

According to Erasto-García, a board member has been buying “chicken for some of our committed volunteers,” along with over $200 in hamburger meat.

Erasto-García said APOYO serves approximately 250-300 families monthly, so food donations are vital to them. 

“People can donate food at our office during our office hours, which is Monday through Friday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.,” Erasto-García said.

Hope Amason, APOYO board member, director of the Museum of Culture and Environment and associate professor of Anthropology, said students at CWU can help with this food donation shortage. 

“We really need students to intern [for APOYO] and they can find that internship on the Wildcat Career Network,” Amason said. 

Amason said they are also looking for volunteers. Some of the work involves unloading their shipments, organizing and taking inventory and making sure the food is stored at the right temperatures.

To help out APOYO, people can also make monetary donations.

“Food is a human right,” Amason said. “Nobody should ever have to go hungry.” 

Amason said while some people may have enough money for food, they might not have enough for other bills; food banks help people reserve their money for other things. 

“Maybe it allows you to get your cell phone turned back on, or maybe allows you to make sure that you can pay your internet bill so that you can do online school,” Amason said. 

Amason said besides food donations they are hoping to expand APOYO off of CWU’s campus due to limited space. 

To help do this they are holding a fundraising event called Fiesta Latina. This event will take place on Oct. 8 from 6-9 p.m. at the Kittitas Valley Event Center. 

“We need to raise about $700,000. We’ve raised about $300,000 or so now but we’ve got $400,000 more to go,” Amason said. “It’s really intimidating.”

Additional volunteering information can be found by emailing Hope Amason at [email protected] and donation information can be found at apoyo-community.org.