Drive-Through Food Bank Feeds Thousands in Yakima

By Stephen Lacey

Yakima Church publications reporter

By 6:30 a.m. every Tuesday morning, a dozen cars have already arrived at the Yakima Adventist Church parking lot. Mere minutes after the food bank opens at 8 a.m., more than 40 cars have been directed into five lanes, and more keep arriving until 11:30 a.m.

In his last sermon before retirement, Harry Sharley, Yakima Church pastor, reviewed the outreach ministries of the church, including Yakima Adventist Food Bank. “The food bank has made a huge transition during the last 20 years,” said Sharley. “It was once a smaller community services center but has now grown into our largest caring ministry, reliably reducing hunger for more than 2,000 people every week.”

To manage the large need, each week between 35 and 55 church and community volunteers collect, sort and distribute food for 2,000 people from 500 households. Most of the food is provided by community partners, including Northwest Harvest, Opportunities Industrialization Center of Washington, local supermarkets, state grants and Union Gospel Mission.

After collecting and sorting donations, distribution culminates on Tuesdays when volunteers start their day early with a short worship before directing traffic, filling boxes with food and loading boxes into waiting cars.

As each car arrives, drivers are welcomed and asked for the number and ages of the people for whom they are receiving food. Then, they drive to the collection point where the boxes are quickly loaded into cars. For those unable to travel to the church, volunteers personally deliver food.

There is certainly a joyful spirit of camaraderie among volunteers and customers. "We are thinking of Matt. 25:35 and remembering we are doing this for the Lord," said Lowie Frey, who volunteers with the ministry.

“I enjoy working with the people,” Peggy Chambers, another volunteer, said. “It's a little part of what I can do for the Lord.”

Yakima Adventist Food Bank operates on an annual budget of $100,000. In the last year, the food bank received food donations valued at a total of $2,750,868. Its success is largely due to generous community partners and the work of faithful volunteers, whose crucial hours of labor were valued at $347,665 for the past year of operations.

“In the most recent fiscal year, which ended on June 30, 2026, Yakima Adventist Food Bank served 115,520 individuals,” said Fred Thompson, Yakima Adventist Food Bank co-director. “Of those individuals, we recorded feeding a total of 33,584 families.”

Food is only part of the picture at Yakima Church, however. The church’s literature ministry is also active on Tuesday mornings. As they leave the food bank, customers can choose to exit through a lane where Bibles, study guides, encouraging booklets and children’s literature in both Spanish and English are available. 

“The people who come, I see every week and they become my friends,” said Kari Novak, another volunteer. “I know their names and they know mine. We laugh together and pray together.”