Tucked into an unassuming location in Bellevue, Renewal Food Bank is one of the fastest growing and most innovative food access organizations in King County.
“The perception of Bellevue is that everyone buys a Tesla, and we got this fancy mall and all this wealth. I think that is a big challenge,” said Phillip Peters, executive director of Renewal Food Bank. “But I think that at the end of the day, there’s no community in the world that doesn’t need food. The thing is, there’s a blue-collar backbone of people that are making a community work everywhere you go.”
“In 2023, we served 1,000 new families. So far in 2024, we are on track to serve 1,400,” Peters said. “Word of mouth has been our biggest source of growth because people enjoy their experience here so much, they tell their friends, family, and neighbors.”
Peters said about 60% of their clients are from Bellevue, 15% from Redmond, with smaller percentages from Kirkland, Renton, and other nearby communities.
Renewal Food Bank works to serve working class people in the Eastside, not just through food access, but by building community and sharing additional resources. Hygiene products are available, and various organizations providing services to low-income residents often table at RFB during open hours.
Dietary choice is key to RFB’s model as well, and options are kept in stock for various diets such as vegan, kosher, halal, pescetarian, and gluten-free. Preprepared deli products for those without kitchens are provided as well. RFB is committed to providing customers with access to nutrient-rich options, particularly fresh produce and proteins that empower their customers to make healthy meals. The staff and volunteers work hard to bring in donated food items enabling each customer to take home respectable quantities of six to eight types of fruits and vegetables weekly.
The distribution area is laid out like a grocery store, and choice are offered throughout the various categories of food. Staff and volunteers are there to serve clients and build relationships, not to strictly enforce policies.
“Our goal is for a child coming with their parent to not realize that it is a food bank,” Peters said. “We want it to be an experience just like going to any other market.”
Renewal Food Bank is more than a service provider acting as a center of community for its clients and volunteers. In fact, many RFB clients arrive before operational hours to volunteer their time and build community.
“Here we also take care of the emotional side,” said Winnie Au, Development and Public Relations Manager at RFB. “A lot of our customers come in early to volunteer and hang out. On Tuesday we don’t open until 4, and people come in around 10 a.m. They would rather come in here to talk to us, talk to other customers and volunteers, and over the years, they make friends. You can see in our kitchen, a lot of our customers actually like bringing food to share with us, share with the volunteers, and then share with other customers as well.
“We talk to our customers and build friendships, because we also know how it feels. Some of them might feel uncomfortable because sometimes they will be thinking ‘I can’t do well for my life being on food assistance’,” says Au.
In order to challenge this stereotype and meet the increasing demand for our services, RFB actively engages their customers as volunteers, providing opportunities for them to connect with and serve their own communities on a deeper level. This approach not only helps their small staff cope with the workload but also empowers RFB customers to find value in helping Renewal to serve the community.
As a result, these customers-turned-volunteers become more confident and happier, opening up to the staff and volunteers, sharing their experiences, and providing valuable suggestions from a customer’s perspective to help RFB better serve the community.
Renewal Food Bank is one of the few food access organizations in the county to have a board position for an active user of their services.This focus on community-building and a dignified experience makes RFB a stand-out food bank for many clients who prioritize trips to RFB and bring their friends and families. The organization’s values of community and respect extend to sourcing as well, utilizing inventory that is sustainable and local.
Renewal Food Bank operates entirely on food rescue and donations, spending no funding on purchasing food. This model reduces food waste and increases RFB’s capacity to feed families on limited funding. It also gives RFB the opportunity to work with local businesses, such as Molly Moon’s Ice Cream and Tutta Bella, to provide high-quality products to their clients.
“Some of our clients come from as far as Issaquah because they know we have good food,” says Peters.
Environmental sustainability is important to RFB, and in addition to capturing hundreds of thousands of pounds of food waste before it goes to landfills, the food bank is working to secure funding to launch initiatives such as “bring your own container” and composting initiatives among its clients. As well, RFB hopes to be able to engage more with local farmers in the coming years to purchase sustainably grown local produce.
While RFB has been able to source more food from rescue and more volunteers from their community, they need more funding to grow. Staff time is necessary to increase open hours, food pick-ups, and outreach, and staff hours often cannot be funded by grants. More equipment is also necessary to expand RFB’s food distribution, such as cold storage and dollies for moving inventory.
“It’s amazing how fast the food goes,” Peters said. “When I first started, when we had way less customers, someone called and asked if they could donate 500 pounds of bell peppers. I said ‘sure,’ and it showed up in one giant hopper. I thought I made a mistake. It was too much. It was going to rot. It was gone in two days.”
To learn more about or donate to Renewal Food Bank, visit renewalfoodbank.org. Sign up for Renewal Food Bank’s newsletter here.
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