National Guard deploying to Tri-Cities and Walla Walla to help distribute food

Four members of the Washington State National Guard will be helping distribute food in Pasco next week.

The members are filling in for volunteers who would normally help Pasco Community Services hand out boxes of food at its Road 36 location.

Gov. Jay Inslee deployed the Guard to help food banks remain stocked and operating April 2-30.

This comes about a week after Inslee’s stay-at-home order, where he directed all non-essential businesses to shut down as a way to slow the spread of the coronavirus that causes the COVID-19 respiratory illness.

It’s part of a larger deployment of the Guard that includes helping Walla Walla-based Blue Mountain Action Council Food Bank deliver food to a growing number of hungry people in the region.

The council serves five counties, including Franklin, Walla Walla, Columbia, Asotin and Garfield.

The food bank and many of the pantries it stocks started having people drive up to to collect boxes, said Jeff Mathias, the food bank director. The move was made to help limit the amount of contact between the about 50 volunteers and the food bank’s clients.

But Mathias was concerned about his volunteers, many of whom are older and would be at a higher risk if they developed COVID-19.

So he asked the state National Guard to come in and help and sent at-risk volunteers home.

“I wanted to have a consistent message to stay home and stay safe,” Mathias said. “We’re seeing an unprecedented amount of need in our counties.”

The soldiers were initially supposed to begin on April 2 but that was delayed to April 7, when they will be unloading trucks with food.

They are expected to help distribute food starting April 8 at a home near the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, 605 N. Road 36, from 7 a.m. to noon every Wednesday through April.

Walla Walla County

The message was echoed by Walla Walla County Sheriff Mark Crider, who said the National Guard is not coming as law enforcement officers, but instead to step in for volunteers.

The members of the Guard are trained are mainly for the area and have been checked to make sure they’re healthy.

“In fact, every member will be medically screened prior to their duty at a food bank, or related task, making their efforts very high reward and low risk to us,” Crider said in a news release. “The activation of National Guard here is only to help our community to be better equipped and nothing else.”

People might notice Guard members driving in personal vehicles, the sheriff said, and he asked for the community to welcome them.

The Guard are coming in just as food banks are seeing an increasing number of people needing food.

The Blue Mountain Action Council Food Bank held three large distributions in recent weeks. At each one they saw 100 more families show up.

At their last distribution on Saturday, they had 504 families, an increase from 326 from a couple weeks before.

“We serve three pantries in Pasco. They’re all seeing increasing numbers. They’re all asking for more deliveries,” Mathias said. “We’re renting a second delivery truck.”

This story was originally published April 1, 2020 at 12:48 PM.