Starting this week, Plateau Outreach Ministries will be taking over the Enumclaw Food Bank.

The merger announcement, made March 16, quickly puts to rest any fears that the Enumclaw Food Bank, which has been serving the local community since 1962 — far longer than POM — will be closing.

“…The physical location of the Enumclaw Food Bank, which is adjacent to and part of the Enumclaw Senior Center, will remain the same,” Elisha Smith-Marshall wrote in the release. The only real difference, she continued, is that “the POM Board of Directors and staff will begin to oversee operations on April 1.”

In fact, the merger doesn’t appear to be affecting much change at all for either EFB or POM, at least for the foreseeable future.

“The EFB is ran by a strong team of volunteers and POM will retain all of the volunteers from the EFB to continue with the wonderful service they provide our community,” Smith-Marshall said in a recent interview. “POM will be adding a staff position, a food bank manager, to help with the transition and be a bridge between both programs as we become one.”

The decision to operate both nonprofits under one roof, metaphorically speaking, was spearheaded by Lawton Case, director of the EFB for 35 years, who is officially retiring from the food bank March 30.

“I am confident that POM will administer the Enumclaw Food Bank… with integrity and continue [its] legacy of service,” Case added in the release. He will be turning 91 later this year, which prompted his exit from EFB leadership.

In a later interview, Case said he was looking for someone to take over his position at the food bank for a couple of years, but his search ended in vain, hence the need to join forces with Enumclaw’s other food bank in order to continue aiding the local community.

One of the reasons Enumclaw has had two food banks for so long is because POM and EFD receive donations and funds from different sources — so if one organization doesn’t have the resources to aid a client, they could almost literally walk next door to seek other options.

This will continue to be the case; EFB will continue to have a relationship with its main donors, Food Lifeline and Grocery Rescue, while POM will maintain its partnership with Northwest Harvest.

Because the two food banks offer different services, it’s difficult to tell how many new clients POM plans to serve after the merger, as it’s unclear how many clients already receive services both locations.

“We could see numbers stay the same or increase,” Smith-Marshall said, adding that even after the merger, POM will continue to “encourage families and individuals to go to both food bank locations because each one provides different foods.”

Hours will also remain the same; the EFB will continue to operate Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays from 9 to 11:45 a.m., and POM will still host its weekly food bank services on Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to noon.

There will be a slight change to financial assistance services, but in general, clients can go to EFB and its Helping Hand fund or POM with its Samaritan Services program to receive utility vouchers, gas vouchers, rental assistance, and more.

There’s little difference between the two programs. Helping Hands (funded by an endowment and private donations), limits itself to serving those living within the Enumclaw School District boundaries, while POM’s Samaritan Services (funded via private donors, the city of Enumclaw, Salvation Army, and Puget Sound Energy) extends to residents of Buckley, Ravensdale, Greenwater, Wikleson, Burnett, Carbonado, and South Prairie.

“The Helping Hand fund will remain with the current restrictions of serving only the Enumclaw School district. However that will not affect our current service delivery,” Smith-Marshall said. “The clients that have previously been only served by the Helping Hand fund will receive more in-depth case management that our Samaritan Services Case managers provide.”

The only real difference in how these program will operate is that clients will now have to make an appointment for Helping Hand services through POM’s office on Cole Street, rather than going to the EFB location.

FUTURE PLANS

While EFB and POM will continue to operate its food services at their respective locations for the time being, POM has been considering eventually merging the two together in a new, larger facility.

Smith-Marshall said was that POM’s Board of Directors is wanting to shift gears from the traditional food bank experience to “a grocery store type feel”, hopefully sometime in the next five years.

The idea of making food banks more like grocery stores appears to be growing in popularity —The Market (formerly known as the Bonney Lake Food Bank, located between Bonney Lake and Buckley), is a local example, and reports that clients are more willing to receive food services and feel less dehumanized if they are able to participate in a system that mirrors “normal” society.