LDS church steps up to feed the hungry in rural Franklin County
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- LDS church shipped 20,000 pounds of food from Salt Lake City to Basin City.
- Deliveries supplied Basin City and Connell food banks with months of inventory.
- Basin City Food Bank serves mainly Latino farmworker families and needs volunteers.
Thousands of pounds of refried beans, spaghetti sauce, rice, nonfat powdered milk and other foods made it from Salt Lake City to north Franklin County on Thursday to be delivered to the rural area’s two tiny food banks.
Nathan Henry, a North Pasco church leader for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and a welfare agent in Spokane coordinated the delivery to meet the increasing food need in Southeast Washington.
The 20,000-pound pallets of food items came from the church’s bishops’ storehouse in Salt Lake City where it is warehoused and distributed to people in need across the U.S.
The Basin City Food Bank in Mesa primarily serves year-round farmworkers and their families who work on farms and orchards in the area.
Board member Mark Salisbury told the Tri-City Herald that a majority of those served are Latino.
The food bank has limited space to store food, so it’ll stay cool and dry inside a storage building in Empey Brothers Farms for the next two weeks until it’s time to distribute it in the community.
Hundreds of families line up for as long as three hours ahead of the Basin City Food Bank’s once-a-month distribution on the third Saturday of each month. In the spring when agricultural labor is at its peak, the food bank serves as many as 300 families.
Recently, numbers have dropped to just over 250 families served in a weekend. Salisbury said that’s because some families are returning to Mexico for short periods or are working the last days of harvest.
He said that the food delivered will last the Basin City Food Bank for the next three to four months.
Tom Blodgett, communications director for the church in Southeast Washington, said that rural food banks are less likely to receive donations of this size compared to those in larger communities like the Tri-Cities.
This isn’t the first time the church has stepped up for the Tri-Cities and Lower Columbia Valley communities. It has partnered to deliver food to Second Harvest, the Tri-Cities Food Bank, Basin City and Connell Food Banks.
The Basin City Food Bank also needs volunteers at its site at 7340 Road 170, Mesa. For more information, visit the Basin City Food Bank’s website at justserve.org/basincityfoodbank.
The Connell Food Bank is open the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. at 420 N. Columbia Ave. More information is available at cityofconnell.com/food-bank.
This story was originally published December 5, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
