Emergency Food Assistance Program

Background

The Emergency Food Assistance Program (EFAP) provides funding, technical assistance and information to community and tribal programs that deliver emergency food services to hungry people.

Services

The program provides:

• Funding for over 320 food banks and distribution centers to pay for staff, operational expenses, equipment, and food.
• Funding for 32 tribes who issue emergency food vouchers.
• Funding for the purchase of food for clients with special dietary needs, such as diabetes, HIV/AIDS, cancer, heart disease, those who are pregnant, or those who have cultural preferences.
• Training for food bank staff and volunteers across the state so that they can more appropriately provide for the needs of their special dietary needs clients.

Results

From July 2005 - June 2006:

• Almost 93,000 of the 1.22 million hungry people visiting food banks requested special dietary food to meet their medical or cultural preference needs.
• Tribes provided food vouchers to over 9,400 of their hungry, 43 percent of whom were children and more than 11 percent were senior citizens. Their number of visits totaled over 18,000.
• State-funded distribution centers provided more than 33 million pounds of food to food banks.
• Food banks used those 33 million pounds to supplement the other 58 million pounds of food they gathered from other sources to distribute almost 91 million pounds of food to hungry people.

Why do we need emergency food assistance?

• Food banks are providing services to more of the working poor than ever before. Families simply cannot survive on the inadequate wages they receive. The University of Washington estimates that one in three children in the state live in families with incomes too low to afford basic necessities.
• Current statistics indicate that EFAP-funded food banks are providing service to nearly a half million people a month, almost half of whom are children.
• Native Americans tribes, with their high unemployment and poverty rates, continue to struggle to meet the emergency food needs of their people.
• Washington State ranks 12th in hunger according to a study conducted by US Department of Agriculture. 

For More Information

Contact Susan Eichrodt, Program Manager, (360) 725-2853.