MARYSVILLE — “There’s nothing like pizza for Thanksgiving,” Marysville Community Food Bank Director Dell Deierling laughed, as his crew of 45 volunteers handed out frozen Pizza Hut pizzas, along with more than 220 frozen turkeys, to the food bank’s Thanksgiving basket recipients Nov. 20.
Deierling credited a host of folks in the community with making the food bank’s annual distribution of Thanksgiving baskets possible.
Rotarians stock our shelves and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sent missionaries to guide food bank shoppers through its aisles. Hot chocolate and coffee was served by the Kiwanis.
Deierling deemed the Friday before Thanksgiving to be the biggest of the food bank’s three days of Thanksgiving basket distribution, which continued Nov. 23-24.
The food bank served Thanksgiving baskets to around 700 families last year, and the year before, so Deierling expected that number to hold steady this year.
And thanks to the Stillaguamish and Tulalip tribes, the food bank has been able to offer turkeys to every one of those families, for the second Thanksgiving in a row. The Angel of the Winds Casino donated 52 turkeys, while the Tulalips furnished the food bank with a $32,500 grant.
“We used part of that grant to fund our ‘Food For Thought’ backpacks for students, and the rest went toward purchasing turkeys – enough for everyone who comes in,” Deierling said. “We hope that trend is able to continue, especially since our clients’ response has been so favorable. Even a lot of our seniors and single people love getting turkeys. If it’s too much to finish off on Thanksgiving, they just turn the rest into leftovers, and use the carcasses to make soup.”
Deierling noted that the food bank has also provided chickens to those who prefer them.
Thanks to Marysville-Pilchuck High School, the food bank’s clients had plenty of spuds to go with their birds, since M-P students delivered 16,600 pounds of potatoes the week before.
“Their cars and trucks were dragging on the ground from the weight,” Deierling said.
Also, the Snohomish County-Camano Association of Realtors generated more than 20,000 pounds of food and $7,000 for the food bank.
These contributions have proved to be especially beneficial in the wake of the severe windstorm Nov. 17, which caused the food bank to lose power, along with much of the rest of Marysville.
“We actually lost power while we were in the middle of serving our clients,” Deierling said. “Fortunately, we’d already talked about what we could do if that happened.”
Because they didn’t need to fetch any items out of the freezer, its door stayed shut and kept the cold in for the duration of the outage.
“We also weren’t sure how much light we would have,” Deierling said.
“We had a few flashlights and emergency lights, but fortunately, everyone had their cellphones.
“We were behind schedule for a little bit, but thanks to all our volunteers sticking around through the power outage, we’re ready to go again.”
