Tri-Area Food Bank continues to feed those in need while under fire
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The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department contacted the food bank association on Thursday, June 13 about malicious signs posted outside the Tri-Area Food Bank where the executive director Patricia Hennessy has an office. Photo courtesy of the Jefferson County Food Bank Association [/caption]
Attacks on the Tri-Area Food Bank continued last week just a day after volunteers at the location loaded clients’ vehicles with food.
Signs were posted around the perimeter of the food bank’s property on Thursday, June 13, with statements against staff members saying “Stop the Tyrants,” alongside allegations earlier sent out in letters to local press.
“I’m a little rattled that these people are attacking me personally,” said Patricia Hennessy, the executive director for the Jefferson County Food Bank Association (JCFBA), whose salary was falsely reported on one sign.
On Wednesday, before the signs went up, I went to the Tri-Area Food Bank to see for myself whether or not accusations of limited supplies and volunteer safety had truth to them. What I found was bountiful fresh produce, volunteers cracking jokes while music played, and a line of clients in cars proceeded through the pick-up area. I watched as one volunteer struggled to find space for more products in a client’s car as box after box of produce and dry goods already filled the trunk.
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An overflowing box of fresh produce from the Tri-Area Food Bank. Beacon photo by Derek Firenze [/caption]
Food certainly did not seem to be an issue. Of course, I’d already heard plenty was on hand from Hennessy earlier that week.
“Last week’s truckload that came to Tri-Area, I would say it took 12 people close to an hour to unload. And that was one truck. We had a second truck that was full,” Hennessy said.
Hennessy was hired in November of last year after a strategic planning session identified the need to hire an executive director for the first time in the organization’s history. She told me one of the main reasons she was brought on was to help centralize operations.
“We are not just a single food bank, we are four food banks,” Hennessy said. “All of them were operated by volunteer managers and were independent of each other to the point that they competed with one another, and that just makes no sense.”
Since her hiring, the JCFBA president, vice president, and treasurer retired from the board that brought her on while change swept through the organization. The most recent resignation of John and Sue Laird, who previously managed the Tri-Area Food Bank, sparked the outburst of allegations.
In an eight-page letter from John Laird to the organization, he referred to his dismissal and other media outlets reported he was forced out. Hennessy, however, made clear that Laird was not fired but resigned from his position.
“John Laird chose to resign. We have body cam footage from Jefferson County Sheriff’s officers where John Laird said, quote, ‘I resigned yesterday,’” Hennessy told me as she relayed a story about a confrontation between Laird and board president Craig Uchida where police were on hand.
Despite multiple attempts to contact Laird, he could not be reached for comment.
In his letter to the board, he described the experience: “Before that meeting [the board president] and the current board Treasurer, showed up and informed me that I needed to resign, or I would be removed from management and barred from the property until they could take me to court. When asked what they would take me to court for, they replied ‘financial matters.’ As a person on social security, I knew I did not have the resources to fight the whole organization in court and I, instead, agreed to leave.”
The incident involving the police was not the first time there had been an issue with the Lairds.
Hennessy said that during a board meeting in March of this year, discrepancies in bookkeeping became a concern.
“We had a bunch of expenses that were incurred, but we had no documentation as to what they were or how they should be assigned,” Hennessy said.
Suspended receipts between the Tri-Area and Quilcene food banks totaled around $5,000, Hennessy said. The Lairds were asked to show documents for Tri-Area showing where the money was spent by April 1.
“The information the Lairds presented to us was very confusing,” Hennessy said.
“The Lairds basically said, ‘We’re paying you back because we used this money.’ And that drew a lot of concern,” she added.
In his letter to the board, John Laird claimed his wife had kept the books consistently up to date. He also wrote: “I had never received any concerns about missing receipts, so I was surprised to be asked where a $500 receipt from last year was. Is this the financial reason the organization wanted me to resign?”
While internal investigations continue alongside an IRS audit, that hasn’t stopped the organization from achieving fundraising goals.
Regarding individual donor donations, Hennessy said, “We’re ahead of where we were last year.”
She also noted the Tri-Area Food Bank found a new volunteer to step in as manager, and that JCFBA was hiring two additional staff members to build capacity as the number of people in need continues to grow.
“The trend that I am most concerned about is the fact that we have 600 more households just in Q1 that we’re serving this year versus what we were looking at as trend over time last year,” Hennessy said.
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Volunteers at the Tri-Area Food Bank had a wide range of produce on hand to pick for clients on Wednesday, June 12. Beacon photo by Derek Firenze [/caption]
Luckily, she’s not the only one concerned.
“We’ve got a fantastic partnership with the Food Bank Growers,” Hennessy said. “We’re hoping to see close to 40,000 pounds of produce from these volunteer growers donated to us over the course of growing season.”
“And we’re working with WSU and OlyCAP on a local food purchasing agreement grant that allows us to buy food, particularly produce, from local producers like Dharma Ridge and Red Dog Farm,” she added.
She also spoke of another grant that the Jefferson County Farmers Markets received to help feed seniors by providing $80 in benefits for produce which could be claimed at either the farmers markets or through CSA boxes delivered to the food banks or through OlyCAP.
On the horizon, Hennessy said the organization aims to roll out a new program in September called Food Bank Food Funds.
“We’ve got a growing need. The idea here is that we have money to purchase food in order to bridge the gap to build consistent nutritional sources week to week,” Hennessy said.
Despite the difficulties and increasing needs, Hennessy remains positive in her outlook.
“We’re about solutions. We want the community to get behind us. We want community feedback. We want to hear if you have an innovative idea of how we could meet this need,” Hennessy said. “Everyone is entitled to feel confident that they can feed themselves and put food on the table. Let’s focus on how we can make people feel food secure instead of insecure.”
