Back in March, when the Stay at Home orders for Washington State came out, all of our local beloved Woodinville wineries, tasting rooms and restaurants were forced to close due to the pandemic. This put hundreds of people out of work in Woodinville alone, plus our neighboring communities of Bothell, Redmond, Kirkland and Maltby.
Jen and I wanted to do something to help our community. Since I have lots of recent experience helping run a food pantry, we settled on that idea.
We knew that local food banks would soon be overwhelmed, and worried that until recently our winery and restaurant employee friends made too much money “on paper” to qualify for food stamps and assistance yet. We figured if we could offer pantry foods and a bit of dairy, we could help stressed local families out during this crisis.
I began calling and emailing our wine industry friends and network contacts looking for a space to borrow. We knew we would be a temporary pantry, and didn’t want to spend the time or money to create a 501c3 or ask for financial donations. We wouldn’t be able to give a donation receipt for any food or the use of a space (nor for the cash that generous winemakers would walk over to sneak into my pocket). Woodinville is a very busy, crowded place with not a lot of usable vacancies at the moment, and I wanted the pantry to be close to my house and close to the city our industry folks work in.
Kimberly at the Woodinville Chamber was an invaluable source of ideas and encouragement, and soon Kim Schoch of KiSs Media and Events and Lauren Bullock from Eye of the Needle Winery were hooking me up with very helpful people too. (They are Superconnectors!) Someone sent our info to the Woodinville Weekly and an article came out to help get the word out that we needed donations and to help us offer our services to industry folks.
A bunch of wineries jumped on board to help us with so many things! Tinte Cellars loaned us a sign board, donated lots of food, and offered their Hollywood tasting room for a donation dropoff location. Goose Ridge gave us sanitizer, food service gloves, and collected food donations as well. Eye of the Needle Winery and Adrice Wines loaned us more signboards and kept dropping off food donations. Lisa from Warr-King Wines donated food so many times. My friend Radonna (who ran a food pantry in Kirkland for years) consulted with me and gave advice, loaned shelving units and a small refrigerator. Thank you so much, all of you!
Our biggest, most grateful shout-out goes to Chef Anne Marie, who instantly agreed to donate space in her catering kitchen/warehouse for us to use, at no cost, and for as long as we needed it. THANK YOU CHEF ANNE MARIE!! She trusted me and Jen with the code to her door, let us move shelving units in and welcome people inside to come get food for months. The food pantry would not have been possible without her, and we are so grateful. I’d love to encourage you to help support her small business by ordering delicious takeout meals from her website, booking catering gigs when possible, and considering renting her warehouse for upcoming corporate events.
Now that fewer families have been coming to use the Woodinville Wine Industry Food Pantry (we hope it’s because they have been rehired or their situations are looking a bit better!) we decided to close the pantry. This allows us to immediately donate the canned food items that sat untaken on our shelves for weeks. We will continue to work to support local food pantries that are experiencing massive demand: the Woodinville Storehouse Food Pantry, Hopelink, and the Northshore Senior Center‘s Pop-Up Food Pantry.
Thank you again. We’re so proud to be a small part of the fabulous Woodinville Wine Industry. #WOODINVILLESTRONG!
-Carrie and Jen
